How we accelerated our customers' success, ensured consumers can count on us, and worked to secure a sustainable mail business

In 2024, we remained focused on delivering seamless, high-quality services that meet the evolving needs of our customers, regardless of how they interact with us. We continue to invest in innovative solutions such as an expanded network of APLs and the PostNL app, ensuring enhanced convenience, accessibility and a seamless experience for all consumers and end-users, which will help ensure we remain the favourite deliverer, trusted by consumers to provide reliable and tailored solutions that suit their evolving needs.

Despite challenges in the macroeconomic environment, during the year we prioritised providing value to our customers across all segments. In particular, we supported small businesses with products and services that strengthen their online presence and provided e-tailers with reliable fulfilment solutions to meet their logistics needs, ensuring smooth customer experiences.

Our international operations saw growth in cross-border parcel volumes, driven by consumer demand for lower-cost goods from Asia. By optimising our hubs and processes and strengthening our European network, we continue to enhance e-commerce logistics in Europe.

Throughout 2024, we focused on streamlining our e-commerce operations, simplifying our service offerings, and enhancing logistics efficiency through automation and digitalisation. These efforts enabled faster, more accurate parcel processing, reducing costs while maintaining the reliability our customers expect. As a result, we achieved €35 million in cost savings across our e-commerce operations. Simplified delivery options and optimised services further reduced operational complexity, ensuring a consistent and efficient customer experience. However, we continued to experience limited flexibility in balancing volume and capacity, impacting operational leverage as parts of the network were either underutilised or overstretched at different times, such as during the peak Black Friday to New Year period.

PostNL’s digital transformation is central to enhancing the customer and consumer experience, as well as reducing costs through efficiency gains, and driving revenue growth by introducing new services and attracting more customers. For example, new features within the PostNL app provides greater control and flexibility for managing deliveries and communications. At the same time, by integrating advanced data analytics and automation, we are optimising delivery routes and improving tracking accuracy, so that customers and consumers benefit from more reliable and timely deliveries. We are also making it easier for customers to work with us, for example by simplifying how e-tailers connect their digital platforms to our systems.

While we remain committed to keeping mail services reliable, accessible, and affordable, our goal is to modernise our mail delivery approach to reflect current customer demand while continuing to offer valuable employment to thousands of employees. To achieve this, we have focused on further enhancing efficiency within our operations. In 2024, we achieved approximately €40 million in cost savings through targeted adjustments to processes in our current business model. These initiatives are essential as we adapt to changing market dynamics while ensuring a sustainable and customer-focused mail delivery service. More information can be found in the External developments section earlier in this report and in the Keep mail for everyone, reliably delivered and prepared for the future section of this chapter.

KPIs help assess our strategic effectiveness, ensuring we meet customer and consumer needs. Satisfaction is tracked via NPS, while parcel volume growth and delivery quality measure e-commerce and service accessibility. We also monitor corporate reputation, calculated by RepTrak based on opinions from the informed general public (18+ familiar with our organisation). In 2024, our reputation declined to an average score of 66.1 (2023: 67.0) but remained strong compared to sector peers. Reputation was impacted by products/services and financial performance, while work environment improved for the second year running. Our ISO 9001 certification (share of headcount) remained high at 98% (2023: 98%), reinforcing our commitment to quality.

To ensure that we accelerate our customers' success and ensure consumers can count on us, we are concentrating on the following focus areas:

• Deliver distinctive consumer experience in the key moments of truth in e-commerce
• Win in the e-commerce market by offering segment-specific customer value propositions
• Lower costs per item while ensuring reliable network performance
• Accelerate the digital transformation of commercial and logistics engine to improve customer experience and efficiency
• Broaden our position in the e-commerce value chain
• Keep mail for everyone, reliably delivered and prepared for the future.

Customer experience

PostNL NPS as indicated
2023 - 2024

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In 2024, we continued to use NPS to measure customer experience. We obtained an average number one position in our relevant markets, which relates to post, parcels and international delivery, and our ambition is to maintain this leading position. During the peak period between Black Friday and New Year, we achieved strong NPS scores, further increasing the gap with our competitors. This performance underscores our ability to deliver outstanding service when it matters most, reinforcing trust among customers and consumers. How we worked on continuously improving our company and service offerings during the year is explained throughout this chapter.

E-commerce growth

PostNL Volume development as indicated
2023 - 2024

1. As from 1 January 2024, parcel volumes also include domestic Belgian volumes. The comparative figure for 2023 has been adjusted accordingly (+3 million items).

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At Parcels, overall volume growth was 7%. Domestic volumes grew by 1.4%, with our market share remaining stable. Volumes from international customers continued to grow significantly, and were 33% higher year-on-year.

Accessible, reliable and affordable services

PostNL Delivery quality Share of items delivered on time
2023 - 2024

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Delivery quality at Parcels reached 97% in 2024, reflecting our continued commitment to providing a reliable and high-quality service. This result is within our target range and underscores the effectiveness of our strategic initiatives to enhance operational resilience and efficiency. While unexpected volume fluctuations led to some delays, our strong performance earlier in the year, combined with proactive capacity management and network optimisation, enabled us to maintain delivery quality in line with 2023. These efforts contributed to a consistently high level of service, reinforcing our position as a trusted partner for customers.

At Mail in the Netherlands, the delivery quality of consumer mail by the next delivery day was 86%, falling short of the regulatory requirement of 95%. In 2024, we successfully attracted more workers and took active measures to optimise delivery rounds. However, despite our efforts and successes in recruiting additional workers, the extremely tight labour market and high rates of absenteeism (see the Social value chapter for more information) have had a significant impact on delivery quality.

As the labour shortage is structural and affects the entire economy, it remains a challenging issue to resolve. Until 2023, this was most evident in the shortage of mail deliverers, but last year it also became apparent in a labour shortfall at the sorting centres. Given the extensive cost-saving measures already implemented, the network has been reduced to such an extent that any further scaling down could risk a further deterioration in service quality. These developments mean that achieving the required 95% next-day delivery rate has become unattainable. This underscores the urgent need to revise service requirements to ensure a sustainable operation capable of delivering a service that meets customer expectations.

Additionally, over the years our Mail in the Netherlands division has had to implement continuous cost-saving measures to offset the impact of volume decline. While necessary, these measures have inevitably reduced organisational flexibility. By 2024, we had to acknowledge that our capacity to scale up during peak periods had become increasingly constrained. This contributed to the decline in delivery quality in 2024.

More information on this, including PostNL’s request for temporary government financial support under the Dutch General Administrative Law Act to cover net USO costs for 2025 and 2026, can be found in the Future of Mail box in the Our operating context chapter.