The courier market - Italy

1.1 Definition and scope of study

The courier market began in the 1970s, with a model similar to that of "freelancers": self-employed people made themselves available to companies to deliver documents or packages. The arrival of fax machines and telecommunications then destroyed some of the sector's economic volume. However, while this change in practices has contributed to the erosion of production volumes, it has also brought real advances, such as online ordering tools or optimization algorithms.

The largest market shares are held by Asia and North America, which together make up over 60% of the total market, while Africa has the smallest market share.

In Italy, the delivery market has been characterized by rapid growth, which has led to it ousting the Universal Postal Service from primacy within the parcel and home messaging delivery sector.

In addition, the relentless growth of e-commerce has represented a significant growth driver for the delivery market: in fact, the Italian population's greater propensity to purchase products online has corresponded to a greater demand for couriers for parcel delivery. 

The competitive picture of this market in Italy is quite varied: the largest market share is held by DHL, followed by BRT and UPS. There are also companies with much smaller market shares such as GLS Italy, SDA or Fedex.

Despite good overall growth prospects, the courier market is threatened by increasing digitization which is manifested, in particular, through the use by delivery companies of automated parcel terminals that allow customers to pick up parcels 24 hours a day.