FACTS & FIGURES

There are approximately 60 envelope manufacturing companies belonging to FEPE, which currently deliver between around 50 Billion envelopes every year across Europe. Their production equates to around 75% of the total market in Europe.

The European Envelope market - delivery statistics from FEPE member companies only.

In total, sales volumes have decreased over the last decade, with a down peak during the economic crisis in 2008 and 2009. In 2010 the market has slightly recovered and stabilised, though a downward trend continues since 2011.

Whilst the transaction processing business, consumer use, and increasingly the Direct Mail (Marketing) business are the main users of envelopes, the market strongly depends on economic, social and technological trends and developments.

The main driving forces for envelope consumption are:

•  advertising expenditures, which tend to anticipate the economic cycle
• e-government policies which play an important role in changing society’s use of digital communication
•  electronic substitution, which reduces the need for envelopes as some transactional relationships become purely digital
• e-commerce, although volumes are relatively small at the moment.