Amazon Deliveries Overtake UPS & FedEx in the United States

Amazon deliveries have overtaken UPS and FedEx both for the first time in the United States, cementing the eCommerce company as the largest non-government delivery service in the country in terms of total parcel volume, according to a report published this week by the Wall Street Journal.

While Amazon Deliveries Have Overtaken UPS & FedEx, USPS is Still the Nation’s Largest Delivery Service

Per the WSJ’s report, Amazon deliveries in 2023 surpassed 4.8 billion parcel deliveries in the U.S. before Thanksgiving. Amazon’s own internal company projections show that it will have carried out 5.9 billion deliveries by the end of the year, a figure that marks a 13% increase from last year (Amazon delivered 5.2 billion domestic packages in 2022, while total domestic UPS deliveries for the year came in slightly higher at 5.3 billion).

In comparison, the WSJ noted that UPS delivered about 3.4 billion parcels domestically in the first nine months of this year. FedEx, meanwhile, said its domestic express and ground parcel volume reached around 3.05 billion for the company’s fiscal year ending on May 31st.

Even though Amazon has now overtaken UPS and FedEx in the United States, USPS still reigns as the nation’s largest shipping carrier in terms of total parcel delivery volume. In 2022, the Postal Service’s total shipping and package volume was 7.2 billion, according to figures published on the USPS website.

Plotting Amazon’s Transition to a Bona-Fide Shipping Carrier

The growth of Amazon deliveries over the past few years reflects the company’s decreased reliance on outside carriers to deliver products ordered on its website. In 2019, Amazon ended its partnership with FedEx as the eCommerce company opted to invest more in its own delivery network.

Amazon still partners with USPS, UPS, and other smaller regional carriers such as LaserShip for deliveries throughout the Northeast. However, in terms of the percentage of its total deliveries that it handles, the company’s biggest shipper is still Amazon itself (a trend that first took hold in 2019, shortly after Amazon and FedEx ceased working together).