According to the 2021 Pitney Bowes Package Shipping Index, which was released in October, global package volumes hit a new high:
A total of 1.59 trillion packages were shipped globally in 2021. That’s a 21% increase from the 1.31 trillion units shipped globally in 2020. On the revenue side, transportation companies also showed significant growth. Total global transportation revenue reached $4.91 trillion, 17% higher than the 2020 revenue level. The logistics industry has been growing steadily since 2014, but in 2020, the number of parcels increased by 27% year on year as the pandemic spurred online consumption. In 2021, a total of 159 trillion packages were delivered, which means 5,000 packages were delivered every second. The shipping company expects global package volume to reach 2.56 trillion by 2027.
As predicted by Statista, e-commerce is becoming increasingly important in consumers’ reality. In some product categories, online sales already accounted for half of all global retail sales in 2021. For most product categories, online revenue share is expected to grow at double-digit rates over the next few years. For consumer electronics, for example, that means online revenue share will reach 60 percent by 2025. But even for categories like furniture, where there are a lot of large items that aren’t always easy to transport, online revenue share is expected to reach 36% in 2025. For shipping, e-commerce is growing in importance, and package shipping is also a very important indicator.