Demand for Korea Post’s express mail explodes
This is the third in a series of articles featuring the country’s best public entities, state-run organizations and government-backed corporations picked through surveys among experts. ― ED.
By Kim Tae-gyu
In 1979 the international express mail service (EMS) available through the Korea Post was used about 600 times.
Since that debut year the figure has exploded by some 10,000 times to reach 5.97 million in 2009, rose to 6.23 million in 2010 and 6.92 million last year.
The country’s state-run postal service is set to top 7 million items of mail sent express this year in just over 30 years. A few factors such as cutting-edge info-tech systems, advanced global networks and the best customer services are responsible for the feat.
``The usage of EMS jumped 10.8 percent last year from 2010 and we think it is quite an exploit to chalk up a double-digit growth in a somewhat saturated market,’’ a Korea Post official said.
``We could achieve such success because we offer the highest quality mail services at affordable prices. We will continue to sharpen our competitiveness in order to stay ahead.’’
Indeed, the agency’s IT system called PostNet has been dubbed as one of the world’s best formats. It enables clients to check and locate their letter, package or parcel on a real-time basis.
Pricing is also important and Korea Post claims that it charges much less than private competitors as well as offers generous discounts for regular customers including the country’s exporters.
Based on such efforts, the Seoul-based organization has been named the global leader in an annual appraisal commissioned by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) several times.
The specialized institute of the United Nations granted the top Gold Level to Korea Post for five years in a row. The annual awards are decided based on the appraisals of 152 UPU members across the world based on service performance and tracking.
Currently Korea Post offers the express service to a total of 143 countries and continues to strengthen the service in terms of both quality and quantity via cooperation with other international public postal administrations.
One collaborative effort is the Kahala Posts Group, which includes 10 members convening every year. The members include Korea, Japan, the United States, Hong Kong, China, Australia, France, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Spain.
``The advantages of EMS are speed, precision and price competitiveness,’’ Korea Post President Kim Myong-ryong said. ``We will try to satisfy people with better services on the back of the Kahala Posts Group.’’