The UPU has published the Integrated Index for Postal Development 2016 (2IPD 2016). The 2IPD 2016 is a composite index that provides an overview of postal development around the world, with the results for 2016 covering 170 countries. The most recently published index report (2016) also includes Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, ranked with a collective score, in the results for the Latin American & Caribbean region.

The basic input for the 2016 index report consists of: UPU data, including postal big data (over 3 billion tracking records checked and analyzed), official UPU postal statistics database (more than 100 indicators available in 2015), and key UPU surveys (2016). This makes the 2IPD insights rely on the greatest data integration ever conducted to measure the development of postal services on a global scale.

An analysis of the data reflects a benchmarking performance score ranging from 0 to 100, along the following 4 key dimensions of postal development:

• Reliability (measures the level of postal efficiency):
  Quality of service performance, incl. predictability, across all categories of postal delivery services, with a focus on the domestic and inbound components of the postal delivery process and operations.
• Reach (measures the level of internationalization of postal services):
  Global postal connectedness performance, at the international level, across all categories of international postal delivery services.
• Relevance (measures the level of competitiveness in all main markets):
  Intensity of demand for the full portfolio of postal services in each postal segment, incl. mail, logistics and financial services.
• Resilience (measures the level of adaptability of business models):
  Capacity to innovate, deliver inclusive postal services and integrate sustainable development targets in postal business models.

The added value of the 2IPD

The postal sector is seen as an enabler of inclusive development and an essential component of the global economy. As such, throughout the report, UPU’s Integrated Index for Postal Development reveals not only the relative performance of Posts around the world, but also the key roads to excellence in postal infrastructure.

Within this context the 2IPD is considered a unique tool by policymakers, regulators, national Posts and other sector stakeholders eager to understand the role that postal services worldwide can play in the era of e-commerce.

Policymakers can draw on the results to develop strategies to enhance the contribution of postal services to the economic and social infrastructure of their countries. Regulators can better identify the development challenges that postal services are facing and benefit from meaningful international comparisons. Posts can benchmark their relative operational and business model strengths and weaknesses across different levels of economic development and geographies, so as to improve their performance.

All in all the 2IPD 2016 represents a key tool to support the implementation of the vision of the Istanbul World Postal Strategy: Vision 2020.

Postal Index score interpretation

For the full ranking and the performance by region, download the 2IPD 2016.

The best postal development performer obtains a normalized maximum score of 100, while the worst gets a normalized minimum score of 0.

Intermediate postal development corresponds to a score of 50. All normalized scores can be read as the distance of any given country with respect to the best (score of 100), intermediate (score of 50) or worst global performer (score of 0). This enables any country to assess whether it is closer to the best, intermediate or worst absolute performer.

For example, scores above 75 indicate that a country’s postal development is relatively closer to the best absolute performer than to the intermediate one. Scores between 50 and 75 show a more intermediate performance in the high range, or “the upper middle performers”.
Scores below 25 indicate that a country’s postal development is relatively closer to the worst absolute performer than to the intermediate one. A score between 25 and 50 shows a more intermediate level of performance in the low range, or “lower middle performers”.

Top 5 postal index ranking countries

Postal services in Switzerland, France and Japan rank in the top 3 in 2016, closely followed by the Netherlands (4th) and Germany (5th). All of them offer either high or very high quality of service across their postal products portfolio, as well as great global connectivity (reach) for their customers. They also benefit from strong demand for their diversified portfolio of domestic services (relevance) and all have business models that are relatively resilient to changes and transformations in the postal environment.

Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region score

The average score for the LAC region is 24.6, i.e. the lowest of all regions.
Only one country has a score above 50: Brazil, at 55.0 (46th in global ranking). It achieves this relatively good performance thanks to better global postal connectedness and much stronger demand for its diversified portfolio of services compared with other Posts in the region. Indeed, over the past few years, the number of postal transactions (both physical and financial) per capita in Brazil has consistently stayed between 10 and 100 times higher than the levels seen among its regional peers.

Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten together rank the 100th position in the global ranking with a collective index score of 28.34, showing an intermediate performance level among the “lower middle” performers.

(Source: 2IPD 2016. BT&P publication period: 2017)