DHL to begin competing with PostNL for regular mail delivery in the Netherlands

Parcel deliverer DHL wants to deliver mail in the Netherlands next year. The subsidiary of Deutsche Post is thus taking on the current monopolist PostNL. From the second quarter of 2023, Dutch companies and individuals will be able to send post from 50 grams via DHL service points.

With this, DHL is mainly targeting the somewhat heavier mail. An average A4 sheet in an envelope weighs around 20 grams. But when customers want to send small products or, for example, magazines by post, the weight quickly increases. That is the part of the postal market DHL finds interesting for competing against PostNL, a spokesperson explained. “You can see that the rates have risen to such an extent that it is becoming an interesting segment.”

The originally German logistics group wants to use its existing network of distribution centers and parcel deliverers for postal deliveries. The plan is to deliver mail throughout the Netherlands. It is not yet known with which rates DHL wants to compete with PostNL.

PostNL merged with smaller competitor Sandd in 2020 and has had a de facto monopoly on postal delivery ever since. Despite objections from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), the government allowed the merger to maintain mail delivery in the face of declining volumes. The highest court for economic administrative law condemned that reasoning by the Ministry of Economic Affairs earlier this year.

For DHL, postal delivery is “not a finite market,” the spokesperson said. Although the number of letters and cards sent has been decreasing for years, webshops and private individuals are increasingly putting small products in envelopes to send by post, according to DHL. For example, a phone cable can easily fit through a letterbox. “The point is that the parcel and postal markets converge into a broader delivery market.”

Deutsche Post was previously also active in the Dutch business postal market with low-cost deliverer Selektmail, but sold that company to Sandd in 2011. The German company was also active in the Netherlands in the field of unaddressed mail delivery for a while.