Revenue of the parcel market in Europe 2015-2021
Parcel market
The parcel market is generally defined as including the delivery of packages up to around 40 kilograms, although this can vary slightly between countries. Deliveries of items other than packages, such as mail and documents, or larger items such as freight, are excluded. Also excluded are same day courier services, although express delivery services are included. In 2019, the global parcel delivery market was valued at just over 342.6 billion U.S. dollars (including same-day couriers). At that time, DHL was the largest provider in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Reasons for growth
Three categories of delivery are included in this market: business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C), and consumer to consumer/package returns (C2X). The latter two categories have seen strong growth due to their centrality for online commerce, the prevalence of which has grown in every EU country since 2009. Online retailers such as Amazon, which has almost doubled its European revenue over the last ears, deliver their products using B2C parcel services. ‘Peer to peer’ online services such as eBay, which has also increased its European revenue in recent years, rely on C2X package services for users to send each other the goods purchased.