Deutsche Post DHL has set out plans to invest 750 million euros in modernising its German parcel network with the aim that parcels will be sent as fast as letters in the future.
Jürgen Gerdes, corporate board member Mail at Deutsche Post DHL, said: “This is the largest investment in our parcel infrastructure since the 1990s. It will expand our leading position in the market and ultimately make our parcel business the second strong pillar of our mail business.”
Since 2007, sales in the parcel business has increased on average by 3.5 per cent annually. It went up by as much as nearly 10 per cent in the first half of 2011. As a result, this growing market already makes up around one-fifth of the total revenue in the Mail division.
DHL Parcel currently transports more than 2.6 million parcels on average each day. Pre-Christmas volumes are double this amount. It has 33 automated parcel centres and some 40,000 couriers.
The parcel centres process about 20,000 parcels per hour and the aim is to increase this to 28,000, 40,000 and even 50,000 parcels per hour, depending on the location.
It also plans to restructure its transport network. “Our goal in the future is to deliver a parcel anywhere in Germany as fast as we can deliver a letter today,” said Gerdes.