This year was a record year for Posti in parcel deliveries. Altogether, Posti delivered more than 34 million parcels in 2016. The high volume is particularly due to the growth in e-commerce. The e-commerce volume increased by 7.3%, which translates into approximately one million parcels. In addition, Posti strengthened its position as a carrier of parcels between businesses and consumers.

Director Saara Pietilä, who is in charge of Posti's e-commerce business, believes that the parcel volume growth in Posti's network is an indication of the e-commerce market picking up.

- It seems that people in Finland are buying increasingly from online stores. The e-commerce market has picked up, and here at Posti, it shows in growing parcel volumes, Pietilä says.

Parcels were delivered to recipients in postal outlets, Parcel Points and to homes. Posti's Parcel Points are becoming increasingly popular. This year, the number of parcels traveling through Posti's network of 480 Parcel Points increased by 39% from the previous year.

Posti will respond to the growing e-commerce volumes by providing parcel pigeonhole services for apartment buildings, for example.

- We will provide Finnish households with a completely new kind of solution for receiving and sending parcels. The new parcel pigeonhole service will be launched in collaboration with the housing developer Bonava in February 2017, says Toni Laaksonen, VP, Parcel Services at Posti.

The parcel pigeonhole system and associated services are different from previous solutions. Residents can pick up their parcels from the pigeonhole when it is convenient for them. The service has been developed to meet consumer needs, and it will revolutionize the traditional parcel delivery models.

According to plans, the new parcel pigeonhole system will be implemented in several new apartment buildings to be built in 2017 by Bonava in the capital region, Turku, Tampere and Oulu.

Quality of delivery of millions of Christmas cards was as good as in previous Christmas

The delivery of Christmas mail was carried out with the same high quality as in the two previous years. Of all the Christmas mail, 99.9% was delivered before Christmas Eve. A total of 29 million Christmas cards were sent this year (updated 19th January). In terms of workload, that meant almost double the amount of mail compared to a normal day.

- Christmas is still the time of year when people send the most postcards. Cards may be sent more selectively, as some friends may be remembered by text messages or in social media. A home-delivered ‘real' Christmas card stands out from other messages and feels more personal. This year, Valentine's Day and Easter were good postcard seasons. Another trend that gained popularity was delighting unnamed recipients with cards: for example, 25,000 thank you cards were mailed to war veterans at Independence Day so that every veteran received a greeting, explains Product Manager Johanna Rouhe at Posti.

In social media, it is a widespread practice to use one's own photos in season's greetings. Posti's new Postcard application meets the same need: you can send a postcard printed from your own photo from your mobile phone. The Postcard application was launched in November, and it has been downloaded over 23,000 times already.

- Christmas cards are kept on display throughout the Christmas period. Therefore, the gratifying effect of a Christmas greeting lasts longer in a card than in an electronic network, Rouhe says.

According to Posti's survey, 81% of Finns find that a Christmas card brings joy and a warm thought from the sender. Age has little to do with this: also those in the youngest age group, 15-24, feel the same.

The survey on Christmas cards was carried out for Posti by Iro Research Oy in November 2016. 1,000 Finns over 15 years of age answered the survey. The respondents constituted a representative sample of Finns over 15 years of age.