Austrian Post Buys Serbian Courier D Express, 1,300 Staff
Austrian Post is buying Serbian courier company D Express, which delivered about 14 million parcels and posted roughly 36 million euros in revenue in 2025. The deal value was not disclosed.
- Austrian Post is buying D Express, a Serbian courier with about 1,300 employees and roughly 800 delivery vehicles; the deal value was not disclosed.
- In 2025, D Express delivered about 14 million parcels and posted roughly 36 million euros in revenue.
- Its network spans 27 distribution centers, one central logistics hub and more than 300 parcel lockers and pickup points.
- After the deal, D Express will merge with City Express, an Austrian Post subsidiary; completion depends on regulatory approval.
Austrian Post is acquiring D Express, a courier company that delivered about 14 million parcels and posted roughly 36 million euros in revenue in 2025. The move marks another exit for United Group from its Serbian assets, and hands one of the market’s largest private courier players to a new owner. The deal value was not disclosed.
D Express was founded in 2008 and has been owned by United Group since 2021. The company now employs about 1,300 people and runs roughly 800 delivery vehicles. Its logistics network covers 27 distribution centers and one central logistics hub, along with more than 300 parcel lockers and pickup points. In a market driven by e-commerce growth, that is infrastructure you cannot build overnight.
What Austrian Post gains from the deal
The takeover covers employees, customer contracts and the full logistics operation, including the distribution network. Once the deal closes, D Express will merge with City Express, a subsidiary Austrian Post already runs in Serbia. Combining the two networks gives the Austrian state operator far greater last-mile capacity, the part of delivery that is both the most expensive and the most sensitive to volume.
The logic is straightforward: a combined volume of about 14 million parcels a year lowers the unit cost of delivery and strengthens the bargaining position toward e-commerce senders. Austrian Post is not making this move for the 36 million euros in revenue itself, but for access to a network and staff it would otherwise take years to build organically. For United Group, the transaction continues its retreat from Serbian assets and its conversion of operating businesses into capital.
Closing the deal is not a done thing. Merging two large courier players in the same country depends on approval from the relevant authorities, above all the competition regulator, which will weigh how large a delivery-market share the combination creates.
What does the merger mean for jobs and delivery prices?
The takeover formally transfers contracts and employees, but the merger with City Express raises the question of overlap. Two courier networks in the same country run duplicate routes, duplicate centers and duplicate management functions, so rationalization is a common outcome of such integrations. How many of the 1,300 jobs survive the merger will depend on how much the networks actually overlap.
For customers, the key question is prices. Fewer independent players in the delivery market means weaker price competition, and e-commerce typically passes courier costs on to the final buyer. On the other hand, a larger operator with 27 distribution centers can offer faster and more reliable delivery, which matters to online retailers as much as price does.
It remains to be seen how the authorities will assess the resulting market share and on what terms they will clear the merger. Does consolidating delivery in Serbia bring better service, or just less competition for your parcels?
