The year 2023 turned out to be a tumultuous one for the postal sector. If previously, two companies – AS Eesti Post and Express Post AS – were offering domestic home delivery and the forwarding of items of correspondence, Express Post AS ceased to provide the service in June 2023. So AS Eesti Post, operating under the Omniva brand, remained the sole provider of services involving the home delivery of periodicals and forwarding items of correspondence in the domestic market. This meant that, in addition to rural areas, AS Eesti Post began to provide services for the home delivery of periodicals in Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu and Viljandi.
The transition of the entire service of home delivery of periodicals to AS Eesti Post did not go painlessly. Between June and the end of the year, the Authority received 92 different complaints concerning problems with the home delivery of periodicals. The main problem was that the mail (periodicals) had not been delivered. A year earlier, there were no complaints regarding the home delivery of periodicals.
AS Eesti Post is also a universal postal service (UPS) provider. Universal postal services mean the continued and high quality forwarding of items of correspondence weighing up to 2 kilograms as ordinary, registered and insured items and the forwarding of postal parcels weighing up to 20 kilograms as registered and insured items at an affordable price throughout the whole territory of Estonia on the bases and pursuant to the procedure provided by legislation.
The affordable price for universal postal services is determined by a regulation of the minister in charge of the policy sector and is valid throughout the territory of the state.
As of 1 May 2023, the affordable prices for the UPS changed. Faster forwarding, ie if the sender chooses forwarding that takes one working day (priority letters), the domestic forwarding of a simple letter weighing up to 250 g costs 2.30 euros. If speed is not decisive for the sender and they choose delivery within three working days (so-called regular letters), domestic forwarding of an ordinary letter weighing up to 250 g costs 1.30 euros.
The second important event involving the Estonian postal market took place in the late autumn of 2023. On 27 October 2023, NOVA POST Estonia OÜ received a licence for the provision of postal services. What makes this event significant is that next to AS Eesti Post, NOVA POST Estonia OÜ is the only licenced postal service provider which is entitled to provide all services (except UPS). Previously, companies had not shown interest in applying for an operating license to provide all postal services based on it.
NOVA POST Estonia OÜ is a company with Ukrainian origins that has previously operated in several European Union countries. NOVA Group, which NOVA POST Estonia OÜ belongs to, provides logistics services all over the world. At present, NOVA POST Estonia OÜ has opened its first post office in Tallinn, Estonia pst 7.