Europe & USA: Last mile market, courier, express and parcel shipments

Konrad Wolfenstein

4 years ago

Europe & USA: Last Mile Market, courier, express and parcel shipments – Image: Oakview Studios & alphaspirit | Shutterstock.com

European market for courier, express and parcel shipments – statistics & facts

Emergence of the market for courier, express and parcel services (CEP) and its development

Since early human civilizations, people have had to transport objects from one place to another. The growth in economic performance and industrial specialization led to the establishment of larger transport routes. Better use of technology with advances in science allowed us to deliver to multiple locations much faster with less effort. The logistics industry connects the business world, and this connection is evolving in response to the changing needs of the market.

The emergence of the market for courier, express and parcel services (CEP) is an example of developments in the logistics industry. Changing customer needs and the dynamics of the global economy pushed the logistics market to respond with changes to create new opportunities. One of the market needs was the demand for a faster, better and safer way to transport both industrial goods to facilitate industrial production and consumer goods to satisfy the desires of customers around the world.

Simply put, the CEP market offers traditional postal services faster and more reliably.

Market size of CEP services

While the annual turnover generated by letter postal services has declined worldwide since 2007, the share of parcel and logistics turnover in the annual turnover of postal services is steadily increasing. Although express delivery accounts for only a small portion of total delivery volume, the revenue generated by express delivery accounts for a proportionately larger portion of the total revenue of companies in the postal services industry. In 2018, domestic parcel traffic in Europe reached approximately 6.1 billion parcels handled, compared to approximately 4.2 billion parcels in 2012. This is the volume of parcel shipments processed by all operators across Europe and includes CEP services. In just five years, the revenue generated by the provision of domestic parcel services in Europe has increased almost fivefold, reaching around 51 billion euros in 2018.

Outlook on the CEP market

The continued growth of global parcel shipping volume is expected to continue increasing by 2025, reaching approximately 200 billion parcels. If this volume is realized, shipping volume will increase almost fivefold in just 12 years. In Europe, it is estimated that the express and small parcel market will reach an expected turnover of over 77 billion euros in 2020. Some markets are much more advanced compared to other countries. For example, the German CEP market was the largest in Europe in 2018 with over 2.6 billion parcels. With this volume of parcel handling, the German CEP market was five times larger than the second largest, namely the French CEP market.

European market for courier, express and parcel shipments – Courier, Express and Parcels (CEP) market in Europe

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US Courier, Express and Parcel Market – Statistics & Facts

The courier, express and parcel (CEP) services market in the United States consists of companies that provide logistics and postal services that vary in the type of services offered, such as delivery speed or weight and volume of a shipment. In 2020, the North American CEP market is estimated to be worth around 90 billion euros and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of five percent between 2015 and 2025.

Courier services include the delivery of messages, packages and mail and differ from ordinary postal services in features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and customization of express services and fast delivery times. In the US, the courier industry is dominated by FedEx, DHL, United Parcel Service and USA Couriers. As a premium service, couriers are typically more expensive than standard postal services.

Express services, available both domestically and internationally, provide faster mail delivery services. In the United States, Priority Mail Express is the expedited domestic mail delivery service operated by the United States Postal Service (USPS). In 2019, total mail volume for USPS was over 142.5 billion, and the company employed approximately 497,000 people. Some private couriers own their own aircraft for long-distance deliveries and operate their own delivery networks through companies such as FedEx Express or DHL Express. In fiscal 2019, FedEx Express reported freight revenue of over $7.5 billion.

Parcel (or parcel) service providers deliver mail that is too heavy for normal letter mail service. United Parcel Service (UPS) is the largest and most widely used package delivery service in the United States. In 2019 alone, UPS generated annual sales of over $74 billion. Ground transportation accounts for a larger share of the overall package delivery market in the United States.