The global express and parcels market reached £577.3 billion in 2025, driven by e-commerce, with projections for continued growth through 2030.
Ti Insight (Transport Intelligence) published its Global Express & Parcels 2026 Market Report, which finds that the global express and parcels market reached £577.3 billion in 2025. That figure is up 5.8% from the previous year, driven by e-commerce and a structural shift in delivery away from the home.
The report projects that the market will reach £609.1 billion in 2026 and £760.1 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 5.7%. The forecast signals sustained sector expansion. It also shows that gains are not evenly shared among regions or operators.
Asia Pacific overtook North America as the largest regional market in 2024. Ti forecasts the region to grow at an 8.0% CAGR between 2026 and 2030, which positions it as the primary engine of global parcels growth for the rest of the decade.
North America and Europe are advancing at a more measured pace, with forecast CAGRs of 4.1% and 3.6% respectively. In both regions, revenue is declining at several of the largest carriers in mature markets. This reflects a growing gap between total market growth and individual operators' performance.
For freight forwarders and logistics partners managing cross-border e-commerce flows, the regional imbalance reinforces the strategic value of Asia Pacific capacity and connectivity. At the same time, slower growth in Western markets is likely to sharpen competition on price and service.
The report identifies three themes defining the express and parcels sector this year.
1. Out-of-Home Delivery Has Become Core Infrastructure
Home delivery's share of European e-commerce fell from 66% to 54% in just twelve months. Over the same period, lockers and pick-up points scaled to around 655,000 access points across Europe's largest networks.
Out-of-home delivery is no longer a supplementary option. It has become central to last-mile infrastructure. For shippers and their logistics partners, the expanding locker and pick-up point network creates more delivery choices for end customers and another route for meeting service commitments.
2. Consolidation Is Accelerating
Ti tracked 136 M&A and investment transactions between May 2023 and August 2026. The most significant was the FedEx-Advent consortium's £7.8 billion agreement to take InPost private. InPost operates one of Europe's leading parcel locker networks, so the deal links the consolidation trend directly to the rise of out-of-home delivery.
The pace of deal activity points to a sector where scale, network density, and last-mile assets are becoming decisive competitive factors. Shippers and forwarders should expect the carrier landscape they contract with to keep changing.
3. AI Is Moving Into Live Operations
Artificial intelligence is moving beyond pilot projects and into day-to-day operations. Of the 34 AI use cases Ti identified in express and parcels, 24 are already operational.
The figure shows that AI adoption across the sector is well advanced, with most identified applications already deployed rather than still in testing. For logistics providers pursuing digital transformation, the shift sets a rising benchmark for operational efficiency and service performance.
Report author Paul Chapman said the headline growth figures conceal a more complex picture for individual carriers:
'The global parcels market continues to grow, but this masks increasingly divergent performance among operators, particularly in mature markets where pricing pressure, subdued B2B demand, and the shift towards lower-cost services are weighing on revenues. While Asia Pacific remains the main engine of growth, the challenge for established carriers is to translate rising parcel volumes into profitable growth amid intensifying competition and the expansion of in-house delivery networks.'
The Global Express & Parcels 2026 Market Report describes a market that is expanding steadily while changing in structure. Volumes are rising, delivery models are moving out of the home, ownership is consolidating, and AI is becoming part of core operations.
For freight forwarders, shippers, and importers, these trends carry practical weight. They affect carrier selection, last-mile strategy, cost control, and the digital capabilities that clients increasingly expect. The parcels market is growing, and the operators that align with its new structure are best placed to capture that growth profitably.