Report: Amazon Is Now the Biggest US Delivery Business

Almost a decade after its efforts to build its own delivery network were mocked by rivals FedEx and UPS, Amazon has surpassed them both to become America's biggest delivery business, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal, citing "internal Amazon data and people familiar with the matter," reports that the company moved ahead of FedEx in 2020 and UPS last year. The gap is expected to widen this year, according to the Journal, though the US Postal Service, which handles many deliveries for all three companies, remains the largest parcel service.

According to documents seen by the Journal, Amazon expects to deliver 5.9 billion packages by the end of 2023, up from 5.2 billion last year. UPS—which, unlike Amazon, includes packages handed over to the USPS for the final leg of delivery in its count—expects to deliver around 5.3 billion packages, while the figure for FedEx is around 3 billion. Both UPS and FedEx have said in recent years that they are focusing on profitable deliveries, not volume. "Amazon is an important customer and our relationship is mutually beneficial," a UPS spokesperson says.

The Journal notes that Amazon was a distant third behind FedEx and UPS in 2016—when then-FedEx CEO Fred Smith dismissed suggestions that it could be a serious rival as "fantastical" —but it massively expanded its logistics network in subsequent years, especially during the pandemic. Gizmodo describes the the dominance in deliveries as "part of a larger effort to control all steps of its business." (More Amazon.com stories.)