Denmark Finding Letter Divries is a sign of the digital era

Sorting packets of letters, small packages and magazines, Herman Moyano is preparing for his post office early in the morning.

Cargo bikes and vans extend from the deposit, just north of Copenhagen, while Herman leaves on his scooter.

Over the past seven years, he has delivered mail for the Denmark Postnord national postal service.

“I thought everyone expects something, a special letter, a special communication, a special package,” he said.

However, Herman noticed that the charges are becoming lighter, and rather than letters, today, they are mainly invoices and bank statements.

“I saw the mail go down gradually. But it has accelerated in the past two years,” he adds. “Nowadays it seems … it’s really going, really below.”

The sharp drop in volumes of letters was largely driven by digitization, and Postnord announced in March that it would cease the services of letters at the end of the year.

It will end four centuries of deliveries of letters by the public operation.

A third of his workforce is released because he launched 2,200 posts in his arm of letter of loss. Instead, he will focus on his profitable package activity, creating 700 new roles.

“The Danes have not received any more letters. This has been declining for years and years,” said Kim Pedersen, Denmark postnord chief. “They receive one letter per month on average, it’s not much.”

“On the contrary, Danes love to shop online,” he adds. “Global electronic commerce increases considerably and we move with it.”

Fifteen years ago, Postnord has operated several huge installations for writing letters, but now there is only one on the western outskirts of Copenhagen.

Since 2000, the volume of letters that the company man has decreased by more than 90%, from around 1.4 billion to 110 million last year, and it continues to drop quickly.

While Postnord is preparing to stop deliveries of letters, 1,500 of its boxes on the red terminals are removed from the Danish streets. However, few premises in the capital seem to be using them a lot.

Nikolaj Brøchner Andrès, resident of Copenhagen, said that he does not remember the last time he sent a letter. “I don’t think I have sent a letter for years … I don’t even know how to do it, to be honest.”

From emails and mobile payments without species to digital health cards transported by smartphone, there is an application for almost everything in Denmark – and this is one of the most digital nations in the world, just behind South Korea, according to the digital government of the OECD 2023.

The Danish government has adopted a “digital by default” policy and, for more than a decade, correspondence with the public was carried out electronically.

“We are faced with this natural evolution of a digitized company, earlier than perhaps certain other countries,” explains Mr. Pedersen. “In Denmark, we may be five or 10 years in advance.”

The high cost of sending a letter to Denmark is also a factor contributing to its decline.

In 2024, a new law opened the postal market to private competition and withdrew its exemption from the VAT rate of 25% of the country, so that the price of a postnord stamp increased to 29 Danish krone ($ 4.55; £ 3.35) per letter.

“It made it fall (volumes) even faster,” said Pedersen.

The large fall in the number of letters displayed is reproduced across Europe, explains the expert in the postal sector Hazel King, editor -in -chief of the magazine Parcel and Postal Technology International.

“Letters across Europe have been decreasing for years,” she said. “I think that Postnord’s decision is a reflection of how the whole market has taken place and the way the consumer moves.”

Physical mail has dropped by 30% or more from its historic peak, in all the main world markets, according to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey.

In Europe, Germany and Switzerland have experienced the slowest drops of letters, explains Florian Neuhaus, who co-wrote the study. “It’s only 40% there, but everyone sees about a decrease of 50 to 70% (since 2008).”

There is a model similar to the United States, where mail has also decreased by 46%.

“It is clear that this is motivated by digitization and how people generally communicate,” adds Mr. Neuhaus. “Overall, the economy in letters is only getting worse.”

In March, the Deutsche Post of Germany said that it reduced 8,000 jobs, while cost reduction efforts to the Royal Mail, 500 years old, we will see the deliveries of second -class letters for only every two days during the week, while the targets for first -class delivery times have also been reduced.

“I think we will see the end of the letters in the dominant current,” explains Ms. King. “However, I am not sure that we will never see zero letters, showing a necessity to protect medical letters and services for the elderly, disabled and rural areas.”

In Denmark, deliveries of letters do not really end. Instead, the DAO private delivery company will go away with its own national service.

However, Daging, a defense group for the elderly, fears that the elderly will struggle with the changes made to deliveries of letters.

“Most elderly people live in small towns and rural places,” said Marlene Rishoj Cordes, one of her main consultants. “When there are not as many boxes to post, they will have more difficulty delivering mail.”

Meanwhile, the union which represents postal workers, 3F Postal Union, expressed its concerns that rural services can worsen.

Dao does not agree with these fears. It is historically a distributor of newspapers and magazines with Nationwide Reach, and has become one of the main parcel letters in the country.

A recent investigation revealed that Dao deliveries were faster, with more letters arriving within five days than Postnord.

“We come to all households and we are in the rural areas of all over the country,” says his head of management Hans Peter Nissen.

Last year, it managed 21 million letters and, from 2026, after the release of Postnord, Dao plans to take 30 to 40 million more.

Its staff will directly deliver letters, while touring newspapers and packages, explains Mr. Nissen. Meanwhile, the position is collected in mailboxes inside affiliated stores, although picking up in no door can be reserved for a small additional cost.

DAO plans to install a new sorting machine and add around 250 more members to its 2,500 workforce.

While physical letters decrease across Europe, Denmark’s experience may offer a window on the future.

In this increasingly digital world, however, there are still many who find joy in sending and receiving personal letters, whose Copenhage is throwing Eiring Williams, who writes to her daughter abroad.

“I think the young generation wants this feeling of old school,” explains Ms. Williams. “She likes the physical touch of something, so more an email or a text.”