| Correos (Postal Service) |
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| Sunday, 26 April 2009 | |
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Correos is the commonly used name for the company "Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos", the national postal service in Spain which can look back to a history of more than 300 years. While being organized as a public limited company since 2001, Correos remains a government owned company with some 65.000 employees handling almost 6 bn deliveries a year, generating sales of about 2.1 bn EUR a year... There exist roughly 2000 full service offices, 2000 distribution units and slightly more than 8000 smaller offices and services points in countryside areas. Correos owns more than 13.000 vehicles for the transport and distribution of letters, parcels and other shipments. Letter boxes are similar in size to those in other countries and they are painted in a yellow color with the letters "CORREOS" on them. It should be noted that some letter boxes have more than one slot distinguishing between different destinations. The first postage stamp sold dates back to 1850, showing an image of Queen Isabella II. As a result of the introduction of stamps, the number of shipments increased significantly in the years to follow. As of April 2009, the price for an ordinary sized letter of up to 20 grams (envelope + 2 sheets of paper) is standardized in all of Spain at 0,32€. Letters of up to 50 grams are charged at 0,43€. For every other format and/or weight the pricing is slightly different throughout Spain. Shipments from and to the Canary islands, Ceuta and Melilla are cheaper than those from mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands. Postage for a letter of up to 2000 grams varies from 4,31 to 5,00€. Pricing for letters to other countries is divided in three regions: European Union, Rest of Europe and Rest of the World. Pricing starts at 0,62€ for a 20 grams letter to all of Europe and 0,78€ for any other country worldwide. Postage for a 2000 grams letters ranges from 17,24€ to 36,90€; strange enough, it is cheaper to send a 2000 grams letter to Greenland than to neighbouring France. As for shipments of parcels to destinations in Spain, prices are reasonably low at slightly more than 11€ for a 20kg parcel. Parcels to international destinations are extremely expensive based on a pricing method that sets a minimum for the shipment plus a certain amount for each kilogram sent. To get an idea, sending a 20kg parcel to Germany will set you back about 50€ with the most economic service. A 20kg parcel to the U.S. will cost you about 107€. There exist discounts and special services for business clients. As for performance of Correos, there are almost no independent and reliable figures available on the number letters and parcels reaching their destinations on time. However, performance is likely to be well below that of Royal Mail in the U.K. or Deutsche Post AG in Germany, which in part is owed to the fact that Spain has got a significantly larger geographic extension, a number of remote rural areas on the mainland and various regions on islands off the mainland. Notably the postal services deteriorates significantly around Christmas, when ordinary letters can take weeks to reach their destination. Correos is generally considered in public opinion as a poorly working company. A significant number of parcels and letters are said to lost during transport which may explain the popularity of competitors like SEUR, NACEX, MRW and others. However, those companies mostly serve business clients rather than individuals and they have only specialized on certain types of shipments like parcels, letter bags of up to 2 kgs and other products. The financial services division of Correos was separated back in 1999 with the creation of a new unit called BanCorreos, which is in fact a 50:50 joint-venture with Deutsche Bank AG from Germany. Correos operates the website www.correos.es which has some 1.9 million monthly visitors. Among the services available you will find postcode lookups, tariff calculators, tracking tools and others. The website is available in Spanish language as well as Catalan, Basque, Galician, Valencian and English language. The main office in Mallorca is located in (07001) Palma de Mallorca on the Calle Constitucio 6, with opening hours from 0830 to 2200 Monday to Friday, 0930 to 2200 on Saturdays and 1200 to 2200 on Sundays and Banking holidays. There exists a total of 14 offices in Palma and many more in other towns all over the island. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 26 April 2009 ) |
