Business-to-business and consumer Direct Mail volumes continue to rise year-on-year with B2B up 4.1% on the pervious year to 274 million items and consumer mail increasing 3.7% to 1020 million items.

In this final quarter, the manufacturing industry increased volume by 15.3%; the travel, charity and leisure sectors enjoyed a combined increase of 17.2% and government mailings increased by 28.5%. The media, utilities and heath sectors saw the largest decrease in volume year-on-year.

End of year figures for 2002 are true to form, showing steady growth on the previous year. Direct Mail volume for the full year was 5233 million items, an increase of 5.9% on 2001, and expenditure was £2377 million, up 6.6% on last year.

The rate by which volume is growing year-on-year has slowly decreased over the past few years and now seems to be 'levelling-off' around the 6% mark with volume increasing by 5.9% in both 2001 and 2002.

Direct Mail expenditure for 2002 was split between postage with £979.04 million, an increase of 6.4% on the 2001 figure, and production with £1398.93 million, up 7%.

The government sector saw a volume increase for the year of 25%; home shopping was up 15.1% and the financial sector 0.3%. Sectors showing less activity in 2002 were media, down by 11.8%, retail by -2.4% and utilities -3.1%. The receipt of Direct Mail by ABs decreased 0.1% while DEs saw an increase of just over 17% in volume.

The 16-34 age group saw a decrease in volume of 18.7% for 2002, while all the other age groups increased. 55-64 year olds were up 21% on the previous year's figure and 45.54 year olds received 12.6% more items.

Commenting on the figures, Jo Howard-Brown of DMIS said:

"Once again Direct Mail has achieved a record year with volume levels continuing to increase. The signs that percentage growth is levelling off year-on-year may signal the end of 'boom' growth, but Direct Mail's success story is in the ascendant and the medium remains one of the UK's top marketing tools."

For further information please contact:

Ms Jo Howard-Brown - Managing Director
Telephone: 020 7494 0483
Facsimile: 020 7494 0455
E-mail: jo@dmis.co.uk Website: www.dmis.co.uk

Notes for Editors:

DMIS has published Direct Mail volume and expenditure on behalf of the Royal Mail since 1981. DMIS figures are used by the Advertising Association in the official breakdown of usage by medium. DMIS also produces a range of quantitative and qualitative research on Direct Mail usage and consumer and business perceptions.