The 4,587 companies in Romania that have NACE code 5320 (Other postal and courier activities) achieved in 2023 a cumulative turnover of €1.5 billion and a total profit of €107.8 million, up from 2022, when there were 4,248 companies, which had revenues of €1.4 billion and a profit of €101.8 million. The only indicator that decreased, but slightly, was the number of employees, from 22,781 to 22,508. The top four companies in the field – Compania Națională Poșta Română, FAN Courier, Delivery Solutions and Urgent Cargus – consolidate their position, especially after the decline of DHL, and they are the only ones with revenues and assets of over 100 million euros in 2023, although only the first two make a profit. Their total revenues were €849.62 million, compared to €760.41 million in 2022, representing 56% of the revenue of the entire courier industry, compared to 54% in 2022. 2024 brought significant increases in volumes and revenues for large operators, especially due to the development of international activity and the progress that e-commerce continues to make in Romania. But profits have fallen in many cases, because the new cost increases could not be fully included in the rates and also as a result of the investments that couriers continue to make to increase their efficiency and better meet customer demands.
We notice how stable the market was in 2023 compared to 2022 since almost all the companies in Top 30 by turnover are in both years, with a notable exception, Nemo Expres Logistic, in 14th place in 2022 and in insolvency since the autumn of that year. Moreover, the companies in Top 10 are the same in both years and the first three – Compania Națională Poșta Română, FAN Courier and Delivery Solutions – even keep their order.
For Poșta Română, 2023 was the best year in the last 20 years, and the company is in a modernization process, phased over several years, involving reorganizations, investments in technology, process modernizations, etc., with the aim of streamlining operations. Courier represents only 5% of its turnover and is not a priority, as long as the Romanian market is well served by a few large companies. So, the plans of Poșta Română are aimed at expanding abroad and making investments so that our country is as competitive as possible and is no longer bypassed by trade routes. Because its main volumes come from abroad, the company aims to create, by the end of 2025, an infrastructure to streamline this activity, as Romanian customs have a much lower processing capacity than the 15,000-18,000 parcels that arrive daily in the country. That’s why some make customs clearance in Hungary and other neighbouring countries. Poșta Română has developed in the last 2-3 years the relationship with almost all the large Chinese and Turkish online sales platforms, which until then were not even interested in our country.
FAN Courier had a turnover of €250 million, about 12% higher than in 2022, the number of shipments increased by 8-10%, so 2023 was a good year, especially due to the return of consumption to normal, and a year in which things became more predictable and the business plan could be continued. The proposed investments have been made and long-term ones have started. E-commerce and B2C deliveries account for 60-65% of FAN Courier’s total activities, and the rest are B2B services.
Sameday Group (Delivery Solutions) recorded a 25% increase in turnover in 2023 compared to 2022, as a result of the investment strategy and market share expansion, and delivered over 80 million parcels in Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. International deliveries were 105% more than in the previous year. The number of online stores that chose to work with this company increased in 2023 by 43%, to over 24,000. The market analyses and the growing volumes of cross-border shipments recorded by the company in the three countries where it operates show a growing interest of Romanian merchants to diversify their customer approach strategies and access new markets, but they are also the result of the efficiency of Sameday’s solutions, which have allowed the acceleration of flows and the support of e-commerce partners.
Outside the podium, a difference compared to 2022 is that DHL International dropped from 4th to 8th place and Urgent Cargus, Dynamic Parcel Distribution (which also overtook GLS General Logistics Systems) and TNT moved ahead. That’s because DHL International only had in 2023 the courier activity, because the road freight division separated, starting January 1st, into a new legal entity (DHL Freight SRL), so that, from €102.42 million, DHL International reached €65.33 million. Therefore, DHL is no longer among the four companies that exceeded the threshold of €100 million, but Urgent Cargus takes its place, compared to 2022, with €102.86 million. For this company, 40% of the volumes came in 2023 from the international market, compared to 15-20% in 2022, as it expanded in Poland and has a direct connection with this country, for the inbounds and returns of customers selling in Romania, and in addition it has stable teams in Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and in 2024, lines to Bulgaria and Greece. The company’s main cross-border warehouse, developed in partnership with CTP, is in Oradea, where most of the external volumes enters the country.
2023 was a good year for Urgent Cargus, in which, apart from expanding internationally, it increased its operational performance (98% of parcels were delivered according to the promise made to customers) and developed new products and services. Also, în June 2023 Vinted, Europe’s largest online platform dedicated to the second-hand segment, concluded a collaboration with Cargus, joining Bonprix or LPP. Apart from e-commerce, one segment that has exceeded expectations in case of Cargus is that of micro and small businesses, which doubled its volume in 2023 and is expected to continue to grow significantly.
Four other courier companies had turnovers of over €50 million, as in 2022, five had over €10 million, compared to six in 2022 – because Econt For You dropped to €9.82 million – three had over five million euros, nine had over three million euros, 11 had over two million euros, 15 had over one million euros and the rest of the courier companies, less.
Four companies had an increase in revenues of over €10 million – Delivery Solutions, FAN Courier, Poșta Română and at a long distance Urgent Cargus. They were followed by Dynamic Parcel Distribution, with an increase of €9.10 million, DSC Expres Logistic, with €6.25 million, four other companies with over one million euros, and the rest had more modest increases or even decreases compared to 2022. The largest decrease in revenue had DHL, €38.08 million, followed by Pink Post Office, with €15.77 million.
Poșta Română still has the highest average turnover over the last five years, but the difference with FAN Courier decreased compared to 2022. Only one company besides these, Delivery Solutions, had over €100 million, after which come five companies with over €50 million, four with over €10 million, three with over five million euros, nine with over three million euros, 10 with over two million euros, 19 with over one million euros and the rest had lower averages.
Most employees among the companies that declared this information have Poșta Română, 21,224, down from 22,338 in 2022, FAN Courier, 3,833, compared to 3,468, and Delivery Solutions, with 1,321/1,360. Four companies have over 500 employees, 15, over 100 employees and the rest, fewer employees.
44 companies in Top 50 made a profit in 2023
Its total value was €47.95 million, compared to €44.53 million in 2022. Among them, FAN Courier and GLS had a profit of over €10 million in 2023, followed at a great distance by five companies with more than two million euros (TNT – which in 2023 had the third largest loss, €1.89 million – Poșta Română, Dynamic Parcel Distribution, DHL and UPS), then by Bookster Experience, with over a million, three with over €500,000, 12 with over €100,000 and the rest with less or even with losses. The biggest losses were made by DSC Expres Logistic, €512,933, Delivery Solutions, €2.97 million, and Urgent Cargus, €17.38 million.
34 companies in Top 50 by turnover made a profit in each of the last five years, while Urgent Cargus had only a loss.
FAN had the highest average profit over the last five years, thanks to the results in 2020 and 2021, when it had over €30 million. It is followed by GLS, with €11.34 million, five other companies – Poșta Română, Dynamic Parcel Distribution, TNT, DHL and UPS – with over one million, another three with over €500,000, another 26, with over €100,000, and 27 with less than that.
FAN and GLS together account for more than a quarter of the profit of the entire industry
The top 30 courier companies in Romania by profit had in total €47.08 million euros, 46.24% of the profit of the entire industry. And the first two have over €25 million, almost a quarter of the profit of all the courier companies in Romania.
As in 2022, only these two companies, FAN Courier and GLS, had a profit of over €10 million, followed by five companies with more than two million – of which TNT in 2022 had a loss of €1.89 million, and UPS had a profit of only €1.18 million, otherwise the other three had similar performances in the two years – by a company with more than one million euros, three with over €500,000 and the remaining 19 with less than that.
15 companies had losses, totalling €22 million
Delivery Solutions is no longer, as in 2022,the courier company with the highest loss, -9.12 million euros, at a great distance from the others, but in 2023, with -2.97 million euros, it is in second place after Urgent Cargus, with -17.38 million euros. At great distance is DSC Expres Logistic, with a loss of €512,933, compared to €1.59 million in 2022, then there are four companies with more than €100,000, which in 2022 did not make a loss, and eight companies with a smaller loss – three of them also had a loss in 2022.
Urgent Cargus is the only company that had losses in each of the last five years, and Curiera Transport Solutions, Abut IT Team, Urgent Curier Post, World Courier Romania, AK Post Courier Services and Ovlog Logistics only had a loss in 2023.
Seven loss-making firms increased their assets in 2023, the most being Delivery Solutions, with €21.55 million, followed by DSC with €1.61 million.
Four companies had assets of over €100 million
The companies with the 30 largest assets have a total value of €986.83 million, a substantial increase compared to €801.27 million, as the same companies had in 2022. €795.72 million, compared to €593.52 million in 2022, had in total the first four companies (Poșta Română, FAN Courier, Delivery Solutions and Urgent Cargus), the only ones that have a value greater than €100 million.
FAN’s investments in 2023, about €33 million, focused on hub modernizations, utility purchases, development of the FANbox locker network up to 1,300 units and of the Collect Point partner store network up to 2,900 fixed points, but also on automation, digitalization, as well as the development of alternative delivery services. In 2023, the modernization and expansion of the hub in Ștefăneștii de Jos began, several warehouses in the country were automated and equipped with state-of-the-art technologies, and the international hub in Arad, dedicated exclusively to international e-commerce, was built and opened, with an initial investment of four million euros. In addition, the company acquired 23 DAFs, which completed its fleet of more than 300 trucks. Last year, FAN Courier came up with a new online identity, a new website and an update of the selfAWB platform and launched a mobile application with many functionalities, in which customers can perform courier-related operations (they can track deliveries, generate an AWB, view all FAN Courier locations – offices, lockers and Collect Point partner locations – and access the history of sent and received parcels).
The company’s short-term plans include expanding and consolidating in the region and continuing innovation and digitalization for alternative deliveries (out of home delivery) and investments in premium services.
Sameday invested over 100 million lei in 2023, mainly in the implementation of technological solutions aimed at improving the customer experience, processing capacity and the easybox network, which was extended to over 5,000 units in Romania (3,903), Hungary (700) and Bulgaria (406). Through it over 41 million parcels were delivered in 2023, 47% more than in 2022. For 2024, the company estimated investments of over 300 million lei, especially in the expansion of the easybox network, technology and optimization of processing and delivery capacity and speed.
In case of Urgent Cargus, an important part of the investment budget was directed in 2023 to operational, with a focus on the implementation of logistics solutions to increase the efficiency of the five national sorting centres, with a processing capacity of 46,000 parcels per hour. The company also has two access centres with a strategic role for cross-border deliveries and 36 warehouses throughout the country, assets covering a total of over 220,000 m2. Also last year, the company launched two technology platforms, one omnichannel and one dedicated to online stores, which offer them a complete operational ecosystem, from order and inventory management to integration with over 30 marketplaces. Other investments were allocated to the Cargus SHIP & GO network, which in less than a year reached 3,000 locations in Romania, which increased by 300% the volume of deliveries dedicated to out-of-home segment (OOH) compared to the previous year.
The next companies in the ranking are GLS, which has assets of €40.82 million, TNT, Dynamic Parcel Distribution and UPS, with more than €20 million, DHL, with €16.96 million, four other companies with more than five million euros and the rest, with smaller values of assets.
Poșta Română had by far the largest increase in assets
Poșta Română continues to have the largest assets, almost €400 million, at a great distance from FAN Courier (161.32), Delivery Solutions (132.26) and Urgent Cargus (€105.79 million). Other companies have assets of over €10 million, three over five million euros, five over two million euros, seven over one million euros, and the rest had smaller assets.
21 companies had higher assets in 2023 than in 2022 and the biggest difference is the one of Poșta Română, with €189.79 million, followed at a great distance by Delivery Solutions, €21.55 million, GLS (8.06) and FAN Courier (6.74). TNT and Pandoras Courier increased their assets by more than two million euros, Dinamic Parcel Distribution, DSC and Bookster by more than one million euros, 12 other companies by less, and among those with smaller assets, the biggest decrease are the ones of DHL, €18.03 million, and UPS and Urgent Cargus, more than €15 million.
The courier market – set to grow in 2024 by a double-digit percentage
Representatives of the most important courier companies in Romania estimated that in 2024 the market would have double-digit growth compared to 2023, especially since, after the strong demand in the first half of the year, there was a period that is traditionally peak for trade. International shipments contribute in particular to this result, due to Romania’s increasing integration into the European e-commerce market.
After the first half of 2024, Cargus had a double-digit increase in volume compared to the same period in 2023, due to the growing demand for courier services, largely driven by the growth of domestic e-commerce and the expansion of the international portfolio. Especially in the B2C segment, accelerated by the growing demand for various product categories, including fashion, electronics, and household items. The revenues also followed a positive trajectory.
The company is focusing on expanding its international presence by launching the new export service, in the beginning with Bulgaria and Greece, and by strengthening the international import service. The second objective is to strengthen the logistics footprint by relocating the hubs and sorting centres in Sibiu, Târgu Mureș, Craiova, Râmnicu-Vâlcea and Zalău to larger and more modern spaces. Digital and technological developments are also a priority, as they influence customer experience and productivity, so in 2024 Cargus Smart Hub was launched, a single online control centre for the rapid management of all operational activities, which also supports e-commerce businesses to develop, by instantly integrating with e-commerce platforms and marketplaces, reducing the time to access sales channels. Another recent innovation is related to the customer interaction process, thanks to the omnichannel platform that offers them an integrated and coherent experience. And the Cargus app, which has reached 1.5 million downloads, will have improved features and design, for a better experience and monetization possibilities. In parallel, the company works on advanced route optimization technology, which will make delivery more efficient and will optimize the OOH network.
In case of FAN Courier too, the volumes increased in the first part of 2024, and the turnover was 15% higher than in 2023, but the profit decreased, mainly because of the increase in the spare parts price, salary increases and increases in collaborators’ rates, but also because e-commerce is developing mainly on Asian markets, where the sellers pay less.
For FAN Courier, most of the growth in 2024 comes from foreign sellers – less from Asia – and that is why the company started an international development process in 2023, as a result of the significant increase in online commerce and the number of international retailers delivering on the Romanian market. In 2024, FAN Courier’s investments were mainly aimed at international development and connecting the Romanian market to those in Western Europe, more specifically, the opening of the offices in Thessaloniki and Sofia and the equipping of the hub in Arad with an ultra-modern belt, which would accelerate the process of sorting parcels coming from abroad. The company is now present in the Republic of Moldova, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Italy and intends to expand in the region also to facilitate international shipping to Romania and to help Romanian companies access international markets – although for now shipments from Romania to Europe are quite small. The hub in Ștefănești was expanded and optimized, so that the distribution for lockers and fulfillment could be done in the same place, an own investment was started in a new headquarters in Constanța, the headquarters in Iași was equipped with a new, high-performance sorting belt, and the expansion of the locker network continued, which exceeded 2,000 units installed and continues to grow.
Its projects also include the installation of photovoltaic panels, which currently cover part of the internal energy consumption of the headquarters in Ștefăneștii de Jos, and the continuation of investments in green energy, both in Bucharest and in other cities in the country where it has offices and hubs.
In case of Sameday, online commerce continues to be the main growth driver, accounting for most of the company’s volumes, but there is also a significant growth in the C2C segment and a continuous evolution of deliveries from online sales platforms for used products, which show a shift towards more sustainable and affordable solutions. In the first eight months of 2024, the company processed double the volume of cross-border shipments compared to the same period in 2023. From Romania to Hungary the increase was almost 50%, while to Bulgaria the number of parcels tripled. That is why in Hungary the delivery infrastructure has been significantly improved by taking over two traditional companies, Sprinter and the Pactic Group.
The total investments planned for 2024 exceeded 300 million lei and aimed at expanding the regional OOH network, technological developments and increasing processing and delivery capacity and speed.
Against the backdrop of the doubling of cross-border orders and the rapid increase in volumes in the three markets where the company is present, in 2024 it accelerated the expansion of the out-of-home network, with an investment of about 150 million lei, to reach 8,500 delivery points in the region (including 6,000 lockers), 70% more than the previous year. In addition, Sameday has implemented an innovation, the energy-independent easyboxes, with photovoltaic panels, which allow the reduction of conventional energy consumption and the expansion of the grid without depending on traditional infrastructure.
Other investments in 2024 aimed at technological developments to optimize operational efficiency and the C2C segment was expanded, by introducing new delivery options, for increased flexibility in parcel management. And the Sameday App has received additional functionalities, for extended user control over deliveries.
