Royal Mail acquires London same day courier

National postal operator Royal Mail has acquired London based same day delivery company eCourier as part of an attempt to expand its same day delivery business in London.

eCourier does same day delivery in most of the Greater London area, something that Royal Mail does not do to too great an extent. The acquisition will extend Royal Mail’s same day reach in the Capital, something that Royal Mail needs to do.

In a statement Royal Mail said of the acquisition, that it will “enhance its parcel offering, expand its network and capture more value in the fastest growing segments of the UK parcels market”. Same day delivery is growing considerably in terms of demand from customers, and is something that Royal Mail used to be able to do with its postal service before the rationalisation of its business prior to privatisation – customers posting a letter in the morning post could often have their goods delivered in the afternoon delivery for the price of First Class postage.

Chief Executive Officer of Royal Mail Moya Greene said of the acquisition, “Today’s announcement marks another milestone in our strategic objective of increasing our presence in growth areas of the parcels market. Same day deliveries are already one of the fastest growing segments of the UK parcels market.”

The newly fully privatised Royal Mail’s quarterly results are scheduled to come out tomorrow (Thursday 19th November) where the costs of its investments and success of its trading in what has been shown to be fairly weak market conditions will be borne out in its trading results. Rival operators and DX Group and UK Mail have lately reported dips in profits and it will be interesting to see whether Royal Mail bucks the trend set by its rivals.

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