Three out of every five parcels shipped in 13 major world markets is originating from China, and Amazon shipped more than 1.9 billion parcels in the U.S. alone in 2019, 5% increase contributing to a five-year CAGR of 30%, according to Pitney Bowes’ annual parcel shipping index.
Even the CAGR for Amazon was well ahead of overall growth last year in parcel shipping in the Pitney Bowes index, which increased 17.7%, or 3,248 parcels shipped every second. It was the first time Pitney Bowes tracked shipments by Amazon in its index.
Among the 13 markets, parcel volume is projected to be between 115 billion and 132 billion in 2020, with Pitney Bowes providing a range for the first time due to pandemic-related uncertainty. The index crossed the 100 billion threshold for the first time in 2019, an indication of the continued explosion in ecommerce growth worldwide.
The index forecasts parcel volume will likely more than double to a range of 220 billion-262 billion parcels by 2026, with a 14.8% percent CAGR between 2020-2024. Because of market and economic uncertainty due to the pandemic, the forecast is wide, between 200 billion and 316 billion parcels by 2026.
A doubling of parcel volume even in six years’ time is hard to fathom, given how congested carrier networks have become this year due to the massive growth in COVID-driven ecommerce shipping, with a difficult peak holiday season and capacity challenges ahead.
“We’re certainly seeing a heavy influence of China in the data,” said Gregg Zegras, president of global ecommerce for Pitney Bowes. “On the service side, the role of Amazon Logistics in the overall ecosystem has been growing. While it’s not new, there was certainly a dramatic increase in 2019. We’re seeing the trend of Amazon being very disruptive in many markets.”
The Pitney Bowes parcel shipping index measures volume and spend for business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-business and consumer-consigned shipments with weights up to 70 lbs. in 13 major markets: the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, China, Japan, Australia and India.
All countries except Japan saw steady growth in parcel volume in 2019, with China seeing the largest gain at 26% to 63.5 billion parcels. Norway had the second-largest percentage gain at 24%, from 60 million to 80 million parcels shipped. India was third with an increase of 19% to 2.8 billion parcels, for a CAGR of 22% since 2013.