Amazon data and sources: Amazon shipped 5.2B US packages in 2022, more than UPS, after passing FedEx in 2020; Amazon delivered 4.8B items ahead of Thanksgiving
Amazon is eclipsing both carriers, and the gap is growing — Amazon.com has grabbed the crown of biggest delivery business in the U.S. …
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon’s delivery expansion has been visible for years: it was already handling about 48% of its own U.S. packages in 2019, a sharp shift from reliance on outside carriers and the Postal Service (Amazon’s growing in-house delivery share).
The scale-up was supported by a major physical-network buildout, including more than 450 U.S. warehouses added since late 2019 (the expansion of Amazon’s fulfillment footprint). The new volume comparison shows that infrastructure has become a carrier-scale operation, not just a retail support function.
First-order effects
- Amazon becomes the largest U.S. parcel-delivery business by the reported 2022 package volume, placing UPS and FedEx behind a retailer that was once a major shipper customer.
- UPS and FedEx face a larger rival that controls both the customer checkout experience and a substantial share of the delivery network, while Amazon gains more control over holiday-period fulfillment.
Second-order effects
- The major carriers have greater incentive to replace Amazon-related volume with other merchants and to differentiate on services Amazon’s network does not provide, rather than treating Amazon chiefly as a customer.
- Amazon’s reduced dependence on third parties changes the bargaining balance across the parcel ecosystem; its earlier reliance on USPS for 1.54B packages in 2019 (Amazon’s USPS package volume) illustrates the scale of business that has shifted inward.
Third-order effects
- If Amazon sustains this volume lead, U.S. parcel delivery increasingly becomes a contest between integrated commerce-and-logistics platforms and stand-alone carriers, not simply a carrier market serving retailers.
- The episode points to fulfillment capacity as a strategic moat: the earlier push to fund one-day delivery (Amazon’s shipping and fulfillment investment) can compound into operational control and lower reliance on external networks.
The trend: Retail platforms are vertically integrating fulfillment and last-mile delivery, turning logistics from a purchased service into a core competitive layer.