Denmark. Photo: Dreamstime
Denmark's state postal service, PostNord, will deliver its last letter on December 30, ending a more than 400-year-old tradition, reports The Guardian.
The decision was made earlier this year.
PostNord, a company formed in 2009 through a merger of the Swedish and Danish postal services, said it would cut 1,500 jobs in Denmark and eliminate 1,500 red mailboxes amid the “increasing digitization” of Danish society.
Describing Denmark as “one of the most digitized countries in the world”, the company said demand for letters had “declined drastically” while online shopping continued to grow, prompting the decision to focus on parcel delivery instead.
About 1,000 of the mailboxes that were dismantled were bought in just three hours for €268 each for the ones in good condition and €201 for the slightly worn ones. Another 200 will be auctioned in January. PostNord, which will continue to deliver letters in Sweden, said it will refund unused Danish stamps for a limited time.
Danes will still be able to send letters, using the delivery company Dao, which already distributes mail in Denmark. However, customers will have to go to a Dao location to send the letters or pay extra for home pickup and pay for online delivery.
Some young people want to send letters
The Danish postal service has been responsible for the delivery of letters in the country since 1624. In the last 25 years, the sending of letters has been in sharp decline in Denmark, by more than 90%.
But a growing tendency to send letters by post has been observed among young people.
Dao said a study of his found that 18- to 34-year-olds send two to three times more letters than other age groups. They would thus seek “a counterbalance to digital oversaturation”.
How digitized Denmark is
Denmark is considered one of the most digitized countries in the world, with a highly engaged population in the use of technology, and interaction with the authorities is normally done online.
Under the MitID system – Denmark's national digital identification system used for everything from online banking to signing documents electronically and scheduling a doctor's appointment – all official communications from the authorities are sent automatically via “digital mail” instead of traditional mail.
Although there is an option to opt out of this system and receive physical mail instead, few do. Currently, 97% of the Danish population over the age of 15 is enrolled in MitID and only 5% of Danes have opted out of digital mail.
