Post office defies e-mail and SMS

When was the last time you sent a social letter by post?

The Saturday Nation set out to find out if Kenyans still use the post office for any other reason than receiving bills and bank statements, especially in this era of electronic mail and the mobile phone text messaging.

Our first stop was Melvins Tea of Nairobi’s Industrial Area, a company that packages and distributes flavoured tea.

The managing director, Ms Flora Mutahi, says she sends by post more than 200 business letters a month. But she cannot remember the last time she sent out a social one.

“I find it easier to drop my next of kin an e-mail, at least if they are technology savvy, or call them up and pass the message,” she says. “In this era, I need immediate responses.”

But Ms Christabel Mystery, a TV satire presenter, says she sends out letters quite often. Indeed, she posted one on Monday and is due to post another on Sunday.

She loves writing letters and soon she wants to venture into stamp collection as a hobby.

“I like the art of writing letters,” she says. “There is a unique feeling or artistic nature that accompanies such letters, which e-mails and the SMS have dealt a deadly blow. I still want to communicate my deep thoughts by writing and posting physical letters.” 

Like Ms Mystery, Dr Enock Kinara, the Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) mail services general manager, says he occasionally sends by post birthday cards and letters to his siblings abroad.

However, Ms Mutahi’s view is shared by almost everybody, when asked when they last posted a letter to their relatives or friends. Letter writing is no longer their idea of communication. 

People who have posted letters lately say they send success or Christmas cards mostly once a year.

The Saturday Nation learnt also that the postage of social mail has been declining over the past five years at an average rate of 13 per cent per year. PCK, the parastatal whose core business is mail delivery, attributes the decline to technological advancement. 

Statistics show that by 2002, the parastatal was delivering 150 million letters a year on average. But last year, it delivered less than half — 68 million. This does not include registered mail.

“Communication has shifted to electronic mails, commonly referred to as e-mails, the telephone and the short message service,” says Dr Kinara. “Social communication has become impersonal.” 

The trend is not unique to Kenya; it is universal. The average decline in Kenya is 14.3 per cent, while that of the world is 14 per cent. The digital communication growth attests to these figures.

Safaricom chief executive officer Michael Joseph confirms that there has been a steady increase in the number of SMS messages sent per day.

“In 2005 the number stood at an average of 2.2 million per day, in 2006 it moved to 2.3 million before moving to 2.9 million in 2007 then to the current 3.2 million SMS per day,” Mr Joseph told Saturday Nation.

A study by Radicati Group, a firm that carries out research on messaging, e-mail archiving, regulatory compliance, wireless technologies and web services among others, puts at around 210 billion the number of e-mails sent per day as of last August.

Latest study

The group, incorporated in 1993 and which has had its European office in London since 2006, is a research firm in the computer and telecommunications industry.  Its latest study shows that, on average, 183 billion e-mails are sent a day, or more than 2 million a second.

However, up to about 72 per cent of the e-mails might be spam and viruses, leaving only 1.3 billion genuine users.

This means that more than one in every five people worldwide uses the e-mail. And the trend is progressive.

In 2006, mail boxes commanded by the millions of users were estimated at about 1.4 billion. But by last November, an estimated 3.3 billion cellphones and 80 per cent of the world population had access to cellphone coverage.  

Despite these setbacks associated with technology, PCK has been growing steadily in turnover and profitability.

Dr Kinara says with satisfaction that the corporation has always been afloat and intends to remain so for a long time to come.  “We have been declaring a modest after-tax profit since 1999, meaning that we have never sought Treasury’s help,” he adds. 

But he acknowledges that it has not been a bed of roses as the parastatal has to contend with dwindling popularity of sending social letters by post which, he adds, is bound to continue. 

And there are other challenges, although he says these are taken care of by business mail. 

“Business mail in Kenya has been growing at an average rate of 12 per cent a year over the past four years,” Dr Kinara explains, adding that in order for it to supplement the new-found market, the corporation has had to adopt modern technology such as hybrid mail and related products. 

“We also have had to develop direct mail marketing, which is expected to excite our customers, hence their continued patronage of postal products.”  

PCK draws its motivation from a decision the management made about a decade ago — in 1999.

The year is significant to the firm as it is when the parent company, Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, was split into Kenya Telecommunications Corporation (Telkom), PCK and Communications Commission of Kenya, the regulator.

Apart from specialised and technical employees who had to remain in their departments, the staff had the option of moving to what they termed a corporation with a future.