Amazon has eclipsed UPS and FedEx in parcel volume and is expected to widen the gap even further as the year ends, proving analysts and people at the two major shipping companies who mocked its shipping plans wrong.
The e-commerce giant bypassed FedEx in 2020, and delivered more packages than UPS in the United States in 2022, The Wall Street Journal has reported, quoting internal Amazon data and sources familiar with the situation.
The U.S. Postal Service, however, remains in the top spot by volume, as it continues to handle hundreds of millions of packages for Amazon, FedEx, and UPS.
Amazon had already delivered more than 4.8 billion packages in the United States before this Thanksgiving, and the Seattle-based company's projections, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, estimate that it will have delivered about 5.9 billion packages by the end of this year. Last year, it shipped 5.2 billion packages.
The company's figures include only packages shipped from its distribution centers to delivery addresses, while the UPS and FedEx figures include packages that are handed off to the USPS for final delivery.
According to UPS, its domestic volume is not likely to exceed last year's total of 5.3 billion, after handling about 3.4 billion packages domestically in the first nine months of 2023.
FedEx delivered about 3.05 billion packages in the fiscal year ended May 31.
Both companies have said in recent years that they are not in the volume race, but are instead more interested in delivering parcels that garner more profit. Meanwhile, Amazon makes up about 11% of UPS' revenue, while FedEx quit delivering for Amazon in 2019.
Amazon hasn't made a big deal out of its delivery achievement, while the company has been sued by the Federal Trade Commission over its competition strategies, a former company executive noted.
Amazon started its shipping program in 2018, when it launched a program allowing entrepreneurs to start delivery franchises for as little as $10,000.
Now, the company's delivery program has about 200,000 drivers in the United States, which has helped accelerate the number of packages it can deliver, former executives say.
An Amazon spokeswoman noted that the route franchise program has led to the company's success in parcel deliveries, but added that Amazon will keep working with other delivery partners such as UPS and the USPS to meet its needs.
Early in the pandemic, the company opened hundreds of new warehouse and sorting centers, along with logistics facilities, which almost doubled the size of its network by late 2021. It has also regionalized its logistics network, reducing the distance over which packages are shipped.
"These delivery speed improvements have been a key driver of growth and are resulting in increased purchase frequency by our Prime members," Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said during a company-wide meeting earlier this month.