La Poste (France)

La Poste S.A.
Company typePublic limited company
IndustryPostal services, courier
Founded1991; 33 years ago (1991)
(first occurrence of French national postal services in 1477)
Headquarters9 rue du Colonel Pierre Avia,
75015 Paris
,
France
Area served
France / Monaco / Andorra
Key people
Philippe Wahl
(CEO)
ServicesLetter post, parcel service, banking, insurance, mobile network operator
RevenueIncrease 34.6 billion (2021)[1]
Decrease 2.1 billion (2021)[1]
Total equityIncrease 20.9 billion (2021)[1]
OwnerCaisse des dépôts (66%)
French government (34%)
Number of employees
249,304 (2019)[2]
ParentGroupe La Poste
SubsidiariesLa Banque postale, La Poste Mobile, Poste Immo, Geopost, Docaposte, DPDgroup, GREENOVIA, Viapost, Mediapost
Websitelaposte.fr

La Poste is a postal service company in France, operating in Metropolitan France, the five French overseas departments and regions and the overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Under bilateral agreements, La Poste also has responsibility for mail services in Monaco through La Poste Monaco and in Andorra alongside the Spanish company Correos.

The company was created in 1991 following the split of the French PTT, a government department responsible for mail, telegraph and telephone services in France. The PTT, founded in 1879, was then divided between La Poste, which became responsible for postal service, and France Télécom (nowadays Orange) for the telecommunication services. France Télécom was immediately privatised but La Poste has remained a public company. However, in 1997 EU directive 97/67/EC required member states to "fully open the postal sector to competition",[3] with the result that the French government allowed private postal service companies in 2005 and transformed La Poste into a public-owned company limited by shares in 2010.

La Poste is part of the Groupe La Poste, which also comprises a bank and insurance company (La Banque postale), a logistics service company (DPDgroup) and a mobile network operator (La Poste Mobile). Although its postal activities are declining because of the development of the Internet, they still represented half of the company's income. Other activities, such as parcel delivery and banking, are on the rise. The two represented respectively a quarter of the company's income in 2017.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d "Key figures". Groupe La Poste. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  2. ^ "Rapport Social 2019" (PDF). Le Groupe La Poste (in French). Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  3. ^ Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service, vol. OJ L, 1998-01-21, retrieved 2019-02-14