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Hello, welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Russell Padmore. Today,

billions of letters and parcels are posted around the world every year, but state-owned mail services are facing tough competition from private package delivery firms.

Traditional post companies are accumulating huge losses, tempting some governments, like the United States,

to consider privatizing the service.

You know, delivering to 163 million addresses six days a week is despite the losing fortunes of postal service, it's a remarkable logistical feat.

You know, that's also its greatest burden.

Lost making postal services need financial subsidies to stay in business, although they're a vital part of a nation's economy.

We'll hear why India has ruled out privatisation.

There is a heavy social service obligation.

It's priced way below cost to make it affordable as a service to society.

National Post Services are modernising their operations to cope with competition,

which could mean letters and parcels delivered by drones in the near future.

To bring drones into the mix, the idea is that they will eliminate the challenges of getting through traffic

if you're on limited time frame.

The challenge to ensure the survival of the world's postal services.

Or coming up on today's Business Daily.

It's a rainy day here in the northwest of Ireland,

the kind of weather that postmen and women delivering mail are used to.

I'm in Letterkenny, outside the regional distribution centre of On Post, Ireland's state-owned mail service.

The Irish have had a postal service since 1638,

and it's always faced the challenge of delivering to cities like Dublin and Cork,

...