According to globaltrademag.com, the global courier, express and parcel (CEP) industry — valued at $476.5 billion in 2025 — is projected to nearly double to $975.2 billion by 2035, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 7.6%.
The Last Mile Is Now the Whole Game
What was once considered an afterthought in logistics has become the central competitive arena: the final stretch from distribution hub to recipient. This shift reflects how e-commerce has redefined value creation — not in moving more parcels, but in optimizing density, timing, and compliance across increasingly fragmented geographies.
China exemplifies this transformation at scale: its postal regulator recorded over 170 billion express deliveries in a single recent year, with daily peaks exceeding 700 million parcels. That volume drives cost efficiencies — sorting hubs operate near capacity, vehicles rarely run half-empty, and per-package costs decline. Global carriers like DHL, UPS, and FedEx are responding with multibillion-dollar investments in automated sorting centers and expanded hub infrastructure, recognizing that density, not just volume, determines profitability.
Speed Is a Network Problem, Not a Delivery Problem
Same-day delivery is the fastest-growing segment, expected to more than double over the next decade. Yet delivering within tight windows depends less on driver speed and more on inventory proximity, reliable cutoff times, and spare network capacity to absorb exceptions.
Carriers achieving profitable same-day service concentrate in dense urban markets, where sufficient order density justifies added handling costs. Elsewhere, deferred and consolidated delivery remains the operational backbone — growing in absolute volume even as its share of total shipments declines. This dichotomy underscores that technological upgrades alone cannot overcome geographic and demographic constraints.
Trade Borders Are Becoming a Competitive Moat
Cross-border parcel services are forecast to grow far faster than domestic ones over the coming decade, driven by rising global merchandise trade and the associated customs paperwork, tariff classifications, and clearance timelines.
Carriers capturing this growth are those with embedded customs brokerage capability, air and ocean line-haul access, and real-time shipment-level data visibility. For business shippers, this combination of capacity and regulatory compliance commands a premium — helping explain why B2B shipping volumes are projected to grow at more than four times the rate of consumer parcel volumes over the same period.
Who’s Actually Winning?
The market remains highly fragmented: UPS holds a leading share of just over 5%, and the five largest global players together control less than a fifth of the total market. Regional strength often trumps international scale — Blue Dart in India, SF Express in China, Aramex across the Middle East, and PostNL in the Netherlands all leverage deep local networks and regulatory familiarity to outperform global peers in their home markets.
Recent consolidation — including DSV’s acquisition of DB Schenker and ADQ’s majority stake in Aramex — signals that capital access and ownership structure will be as decisive as fleet size in shaping the next phase of competition.
Source: globaltrademag.com
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
