Royal Mail has seen steady growth in parcel volumes in the three quarters to 24 December. Parcel volumes were up 6%, somewhat offsetting a fall in mail volumes of 5%.

In a trading update, Moya Greene, the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Mail, said: “We have had a good performance over the important Christmas period thanks to the hard work and dedication of our people. They pulled out all the stops to deliver a great Christmas for the UK.

“We remain the number one facilitator of e-commerce in the UK due to our significant investments to improve our customer offering. Parcel volumes in the nine months were up 6%, with 149m parcels handled over the December trading period. Letters performance was better than expected with addressed letter volumes down 5%. GLS delivered another strong performance with volumes and revenue up 10%. Overall, Group revenue was up 2%.

“Given our performance to date, we expect to see broadly similar volume and revenue trends in UK parcels and letters for the full year as in the nine months. In GLS, we expect underlying revenue growth for the full year to be broadly in line with the first half.

“We have continued to make progress in talks with our unions on pay, pensions and the other issues under discussion. We have agreed the fundamental principles on some of the key issues and talks are ongoing to finalise these and other areas. We believe we can reach agreement on an affordable and sustainable pension solution and a pay deal that will enable us to continue to innovate and grow.”