Postal service market booming

The postal service has recently become a bustling market with the new investment deals. While foreign service providers have been expanding business, domestic companies have been rushing to ask for operation licenses.

There are two different segments of the market. Foreign invested enterprises (four big delivery service providers in the world, namely FedEx, TNT, DHL, UPS), thanks to their notable financial capabilities and operation scales, have been dominating the market segment of carrying cargo from foreign countries to Vietnam and from Vietnam to foreign countries. Meanwhile, the domestic carriage service market has been the playing field of domestic enterprises.

Within the last month, two of the four big delivery companies present in Vietnam, expanded their investments in order to satisfy the increasing demand.

In early November, FedEx opened new air routes that allowed direct flights from Hanoi to foreign countries to provide fast delivery services. In the past, cargo were carried from Hanoi to HCM City before they were carried to foreign countries.

FedEx, which has been present in Vietnam since 1994, is the first delivery service provider to own aircrafts (other service providers use chartered aircrafts.)

“The opening of direct air routes from Hanoi to foreign countries allows FedEx to shorten the time for carrying goods from Hanoi to different destinations in the world by one day. It is considered as an important factor to improve competitiveness,” said Nguyen Duy Binh, Indochina Director of FedEx.

Binh said that the current transportation capacity in Vietnam is 30 tons of goods every day, a five fold increase in the last seven years.

TNT, another international delivery service provider, has tripled the scale of their cargo center. The new center with an investment capital of $1.5 million and with 100 workers, is capable capable of handling 100 tons of goods every day.

Hardy Diec, TNT’s General Director, said that as the demand for the transportation service has been increasing sharply, TNT has to expand its operation to satisfy the demand.

Opportunities on the domestic market

The domestic postal service market has also been described as becoming more prosperous recently with many enterprises asking for a license for letter deliveries.

Just in the last several months, more than 10 enterprises have been seeking licenses, which is 50 percent higher than the number companies seeking licenses in the last several years.

Nguyen Van Tu, Deputy General Director of Tin Thanh Company, one of the first enterprises that got a license for providing letter deliveries in 2007, shared the same view.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Post and Communication Nguyen Thanh Hung, also said postal services will have numerous opportunities in the future.

Viettel Post Company hopes that in the fourth quarter of 2010, it will get $156 billion in turnover, an increase of 26 percent from the third quarter. Besides, the company plans to expand the service network, raising network coverage from 84.5 percent currently to 90 percent by the end of the year.

Hop Nhat Group has also been attracting a big number of clients. It plans to obtain 270 billion dong in turnover in 2010 after getting 90 billion dong in turnover in the first six months of the year.- Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon

Tags: vietnam logistics