Earlier this year, Amazon surpassed the nation’s leading shipping companies as the majority shipper of its own products. In data first shared with new site Axios, market research firm Rakuten Intelligence broke down the company’s share of shipments by carrier as of May 27 as follows:

• Amazon: 47.6%
• USPS: 33.3%
• UPS: 16.5%
• FedEx: 1.6%

For reference, Axios pointed out that just two years ago, the U.S. Postal Service delivered more than 60% of Amazon’s goods, with the company delivering approximately 15%.

It’s a significant development for the company that entered the logistics industry less than 10 years ago. As Rakuten Intelligence’s Alex Pellas told Axios, “Amazon is about 40% of all e-commerce. If they're handling half of their own shipments, that's 20% of the whole market."

Interestingly, Amazon appeared to deny the data in a statement to Axios: “The numbers are not an accurate representation of how Amazon shipments are shared between Amazon and our carrier partners.” It did not elaborate further. 

In June, FedEx announced it was ending its U.S. air partnership with Amazon. "Our strategic decision to not renew the FedEx Express U.S. domestic contract with Amazon will also be a near-term headwind, which we expect to reverse to a positive in FY 2021, as we replace the lost volume and optimize the network," said Brie Carere, the company’s chief marketing and communications officer, in an investor call last week.

Amazon’s made no secret of its plans to grow its shipping capabilities. In a December 2018 press release announcing the expansion of its Amazon Air operation with 10 new planes, Dave Clark, senior vice president of worldwide operations at Amazon, said, “Our customers love massive selection and fast delivery, and the Amazon Air capacity we are building enables Prime delivery speeds for customers from Seattle, Washington to Miami, Florida. By expanding the Amazon Air network through our partnership with ATSG we’re able to ensure we have the capacity to quickly and efficiently deliver packages to customers for years to come.”