Now that there is a high penetration of mobile internet in Uganda, the need for letter writing has reduced tremendously. With smartphones, tablets and portable PCs on the market, sending a letter to colleague in Arua, Gulu or Masaka is as easy as sending them an email. According to a UCC yearly report, the number of domestic ordinary letters posted dropped from 881,028 to 693,453 from the end of June 2014 to the beginning of July 2015, representing a 21% drop, this is signifying the death of the post office as we wrote once before. The Domestic Expedited Mail Service numbers dropped by 21% from 181,455 to 143,207. However, there had been a 1% increase in domestic registered letters post from 17,319 to 17,530 for the period under review.
More International letters coming in
On the plus side, the number of incoming European letters was highest, compared to the outgoing ones. The number of letters coming into Uganda from the East African states was higher than those posted from Uganda to rest of the EA region.
The number of service providers in the postal subsector remained unchanged in 2015. The exception was the number of Regional and Domestic Curriers which dropped by two each. With respect to regional couriers, Skynet Uganda Ltd and East African Couriers had their licenses revoked; while for domestic couriers, Country Safaris and Kampala Coach Ltd also had their licenses revoked.
