The Danish postal service announced Thursday that it would no longer deliver letters from next year and would lay off a third of its staff.

"At the end of the year, PostNord will deliver its final letter... to focus on its role as the premier parcel delivery service in Denmark," the company announced in a statement.

PostNord said the restructuring was due to digitalisation leading to a staggering decrease in the number of letters being sent, with a 90 percent reduction since 2000.

A total of 1,500 out of 4,600 jobs will also be cut.

"In 2024, the number of letters fell by more than 30 percent compared to the previous year and this trend will continue," the company said.

PostNord lost its obligation to deliver post to the whole of Denmark last year in a move towards market liberalisation, meaning the company also lost much of its financial support.

The distributor DAO, which won the contract to deliver public service mail last year, has said it is ready to strengthen its letter distribution service.

"We can still send and receive letters everywhere in the country," Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen told the local news agency Ritzau.

Many postal services are struggling across Europe due to digitalisation. The German postal service, Deutsche Post, also announced Thursday that it would cut 8,000 jobs in Germany to reduce its costs.

Britain's postal operator, Royal Mail, has also seen its core letters business ravaged.

The communications regulator Ofcom has proposed that Royal Mail cuts delivery to five days, or even three days per week, potentially saving the company hundreds of millions of pounds.