Australia Post has announced a full year loss after tax of AUD $222 million. Executives have said this is due to the mail market being in ‘terminal decline’.

Addressed letter volumes fell by 7.3% year on year as more customers find digital alternatives to posting letters. The business has invested heavily in retraining and re-deploying its workforce to the parcel delivery side of the business as it adjusts to the changing postal ecosystem. Parcel revenue increased by 3.6% to AUD $3.21bn and accounted for more than half of the total revenue for the first time in Australia Posts’s history.

The postal service has been investing heavily in e-commerce as a form of revenue generation, including setting up a network of parcel lockers for customers who may not be home when the delivery arrives.

The Communication Worker’s Union has accused the CEO Ahmed Fahour of ‘walking away from mail’ and insists that a traditional postal service has purpose in the modern, predominantly digital communications environment.