Macquarie Analyst: Amazon Shifting Business Away From FedEx To UPS

FedEx FDX may be losing Amazon AMZN as a customer, an analyst speculated Thursday.

In a conference call Thursday, FedEx told investors it had lost "one large customer" for its FedEx SmartPost service in the recent quarter, driving down volume for the segment by eight percent.

FedEx didn't identify the customer, but Ben Schachter of Macquarie believes "it's highly likely that Amazon is moving traffic away from FedEx and tendering packages directly to UPS for final-mile delivery."

Schachter, who made the comments in a note Thursday, said SmartPost is one of the FedEx services that Amazon has heavily used. Had the mystery customer not departed, Schachter said SmartPost volume would have been "up in the mid-teens" for the quarter.

Published estimates suggest that Amazon shipped about 608 million U.S. packages last year. UPS got 30 percent of the business, regional shippers 18 percent and FedEx about 17 percent. The Postal Service accounted for the remainder.

Amazon got stung last Christmas by both FedEx and UPS, which each failed to deliver some packages in time for the holiday. As a result, Amazon offered customer rebates of $20.

The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Amazon is testing its own, in-house delivery for final-mile service.

FedEx opened sharply higher Thursday on strong overall results for the recent quarter. FedEx traded recently at $147.87 per share, down 0.73 percent