In 2008, it took a little longer for letters from abroad to reach their destination in Switzerland. 92.6% of letters mailed abroad reached their recipients in Switzerland on time. The previous year's result was 94.9%. The decline was down to the changeover to the new letter processing system in Switzerland. By European comparison, Swiss Post is still one of the fastest providers. PRIORITY letters mailed to Switzerland reached their destination after two days on average, again undercutting the European mean figure.

In 2008, 92.6% of the 236 million or so letters mailed to Switzerland reached their recipients on time. The result in 2007 was 94.9%. The decline was due to the gradual commissioning of the new letter centres in Switzerland. The introduction phase of the new letter processing system as part of the large-scale REMA project was completed in March with the opening of the Härkingen letter centre. During the year, the new processing steps were consolidated further, bringing about an increase in quality that is already evident.

A step ahead in Europe

Swiss Post's result for 2008 fell just short of the REIMS quality target of 93%. REIMS (Remuneration of Mandatory Deliveries of Cross-Border Mails) governs the conditions for remuneration between postal companies for their cross-border services at an international level. Swiss Post has nothing to fear from an international comparison, as its pace of work is still above average. In the past two years, PRIORITY letters from abroad were in transit for an average of 2 days. The European average is 2.1 days. The result is the same for letters mailed from Switzerland to other countries. Swiss Post can only influence the speed of delivery up to the time the items are handed over to the postal company in charge of delivery. The results for the delivery time of PRIORITY letters are derived from statistics of 34 European countries gathered by the International Post Corporation (IPC).

A similar picture for prices

Compared with other international providers, Swiss Post does well in terms of both speed and price. For the reporting date of 15 January, Swiss Post altered the letter price index, which was developed by an independent body and is recognized by the regulatory authorities and companies. The index is based on a basket of all the letter categories offered by Swiss Post which are weighted according to the frequency with which they are actually used by Swiss consumers. In this survey, Swiss Post ranked as the fifth least expensive provider among the fifteen key countries surveyed in Europe. In Germany and France, comparable letters are 10-15% more expensive.