The latest rise represents a leap to 1.3bn items. The volume of business-to-consumer direct mail was up 7.5% while business-to-business mail decreased slightly by 1.8%.
The decrease continues the downward trend that has developed since January 2003. However, the percentage by which B2B direct mail has decreased year on year has become significantly less with each quarter.
Total direct mail expenditure for this quarter was 拢557.3m -- an increase of 0.6% from the same period last year. Of this expenditure, postage made up 44% with 拢242.6m while production accounted for 56% at 拢314.7m.
Financial services and home shopping remain the largest mailers with volumes of 241m and 135m respectively. Year on year, financial services has grown by 13.6% while home shopping has shown a slight decrease of 6% on the same quarter in 2002. Home shopping was the only sector to see a decrease in this quarter.
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