The volume of the postal services market in Bulgaria for 2008 amounts to 248 mill. BGN, which is a growth of 20% compared to 2007 following the official annual report of the Communications Regulation Commission in the postal sector. Within the limits of this market the postal operators provide universal postal service and non-universal postal services. By the end of 2008 the total number of licensed and registered postal operators is 81, and out of them in practice 48 have provided non-universal postal services, 4 – including the main postal operator – Bulgarian posts EAD have provided non-universal postal services and services from the scope of the universal postal service, while 3 have provided only the service “postal money transfers”.

 

According to the annual report, for third consecutive year the basic trends in the sector have been preserved, namely: stable increase in the number of the provided services and postal parcels and income universal postal service and non-universal postal service, as well as preserved ratio of the revenues from non-universal service and universal service 2 to 1.

 

The main postal operator forms 28% of the total volume of the postal market in 2008 and the tendency towards decreasing of its market share is maintained. For the last year this decrease is with 5%. Other 21% of the market are formed by the activity of the remaining 3 operators, which provide all services from the scope of the universal postal service – Econt Express OOD, M&BM Express OOD and Tip-Top Courier AD. Their total market share for the last year has increased by 3% in comparison with 2007. The remaining 51% from the market are divided among the non-universal postal service operators and those, providing the service postal money transfers.

 

For 2008 Bulgarian Posts EAD has achieved a positive financial result from the implementation of the universal postal service, due to which it has not applied for and has not used any compensation from the state budget. It’s important also that in 2008 the first agreement for shared access to the networks of Bulgarian posts EAD and Tip-Top Courier AD was concluded for the universal postal service scope, which lays the beginning for opening the network of the postal incumbent for competitors.

 

The greater part of the postal sector revenues are formed out of the non-universal postal service provision. Concretely the revenues from courier services represent the greatest relative share of the whole market, which in 2008 have increased by 30% compared to 2007.

 

A growth is observed also for the service “hybrid post”, which is due to the technology for its provision, namely the transforming of delivered electronically data in postal parcels and their delivery to the recipients. For the last 3 years the revenues from this service form up to 12% of the postal market volume in Bulgaria.

Despite the growth of the postal market, the world financial-economic crisis influences the sector, through the expectations for shrinking the market and smaller investments in comparison with the last 4 years.

In short term aspect CRC will direct its attention to the conditions for interconnection of the networks of the operators, providing universal postal service and the analysis for costs allocation of the main postal operator.

The regulator intends to propose legislative changes regarding the quality of the services for optimizing the process of measurement, recording and control of the quality norms of the universal postal service.