In its half-year trading statement, the group said it is also facing mounting competition from other operators in the deregulated postal market and its rivals now handle almost one letter for every three posted.
Royal Mail currently handles an average daily postbag of 79m letters, 5m fewer than two years ago, when volumes were at their peak.
However, the group's operating profit more than doubled over the period, growing by £91m -- from £86m in the same period last year to £177m -- thanks to cost-cutting measures and new product development.
Adam Crozier, the Royal Mail's chief executive, said: "The increase in our profitability we are reporting today underlines the huge effort that has been made across the company to drive up quality of service, to cut our costs and to improve our financial performance.
"However we are also facing huge pressures with the [one-price-goes-everywhere] universal postal service still loss-making, competition intensifying still further both from electronic communications and rival operators, and the increasingly heavy costs of servicing the historic pension deficit."
The future of the universal postal service is being studied by government-commissioned review, which is due to report to business secretary Lord Mandelson in the next few weeks.
"The universal service is undoubtedly in danger," Crozier said, "unless we have fairer regulation, the ability to access cash going forward to keep investing in the business, and a long-term solution to the pension funding burden that currently consumes so much of the revenues we generate."
He added that irrespective of the outcome of the review, the business needed "clarity over the future of the industry and Royal Mail's status in an increasingly competitive communications marketplace."
Royal Mail also said it faced increasing pressure from the struggling UK economy, because its mail volumes and revenues mirror GDP and suffer from moves by consumers and businesses to cut costs. It said that it is particularly vulnerable to a downturn in the advertising market, a major contributor to overall mailings.
Crozier added: "The scale of these challenges means there is an urgent need to step up the pace of modernisation and to ensure that everyone in the company is playing their part in transforming our operations and delivering a world class postal service."
Elsewhere across the business, the Post Office was back in the black, making an operating profit of £28m in the first half of 2008, compared with a £7m loss in 2007. This is due in part to new services such as the Post Office's HomePhone and broadband packages.
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