Letters performance

In the nine months ended 23 December 2018:

• Addressed letter volumes (excluding political parties’ election mailings) were down 8%*
• Money earned from total letters was down 6%
• Total UK revenue fell 1%, as growth in UK parcels revenue was not enough to offset this decline. 
 
The decline in addressed letter volumes (excluding elections) largely reflects the continuing impact of data protection legislation (GDPR), which was introduced last year, as well as a relatively strong prior year comparative period (the first nine months of 2017-18 benefited from financial sector mailings).

Outlook  
We expect addressed letter volumes (excluding elections) to decline by 7-8% in 2018-19.
While the rate of e-substitution remains in line with our expectations, business uncertainty is impacting letter volumes. As a result, the decline in addressed letter volumes, excluding elections, is likely to be outside our forecast medium-term range of 4-6% in 2019-20.

Click here to find the Colleague Update on our trading update.

*Movements in money we earn, costs, profit, margin and volumes are shown on an underlying basis unless otherwise stated. ‘Underlying’ means we have adjusted for certain items to make the results easier to compare and understand.