The big picture: Given the e-commerce giant's sheer size and shipping volume, this is absolutely huge but not entirely surprising. Amazon loves to control every aspect of its business and shipping is a key cog.
Data supplied to Axios via market research firm Rakuten Intelligence indicates that nearly half (47.6 percent) of Amazon packages are delivered by the company itself. By comparison, in January 2017, the US Postal Service was handling more than 60 percent of packages and Amazon was delivering fewer than 15 percent.
Curiously enough, the share of packages delivered by UPS and FedEx mostly stayed the same between early 2017 and now. Even more interesting is the fact that FedEx's share never climbed above two percent or so during that span.
For what it's worth, Amazon said in a statement to Axios that the numbers were not an accurate representation of how shipments are shared between Amazon and carrier partners.
Whether entirely accurate or not, it's worth taking note of. As Mark Rosenbaum, a professor at the University of South Carolina, highlights, "we're now talking about a retailer that will control the entire process."
Either way, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Jaimee Minney of Rakuten Intelligence said Amazon getting into shipping is the company's "classic model of partner with, copy, and unseat their competitors."
Masthead credit: Delivery truck of Amazon Prime by alexfan32. Chart courtesy Axios.