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Postal Service posts declines in Q2 parcel revenue, volume

Shipping activity falls modestly as e-commerce activity wanes

Mark Solomon
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The Postal Service is bringing on tens of thousands of temporary workers for the holidays (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

The U.S. Postal Service late Tuesday reported fiscal 2022 second-quarter results that included year-over-year declines in shipping and package revenue as e-commerce delivery growth continued to level off.

The Postal Service moved 1.74 billion pieces in the quarter, which ended June 30. That was down from 1.83 billion pieces, or 5%, in the year-earlier period when e-commerce demand was much higher. Shipping and package revenue hit $7.57 billion, down from $7.65 billion, or 1.1%.

Shipping and package revenue accounted for roughly 40% of the Postal Service’s total quarterly revenue of $18.74 billion, up slightly from the fiscal 2021 quarter. Shipping and package volume accounted for about 3% of total volumes in the 2022 quarter. In all, volumes fell 0.7%, or 201 million pieces.

The agency had expected a slowdown in parcel volumes as e-commerce activity abated with the pandemic’s waning effects.


The Postal Service reported an adjusted quarterly loss of $449 million, compared with $41 million in the year-earlier period. The 2022 quarter included a one-time $59.6 billion non-cash benefit from postal reform legislation signed into law in April that repealed the requirement that the agency prefund all future retiree health benefits and canceled all past due prefunding obligations, which ran into the billions of dollars. 

As a result of the one-time benefit, the agency reported net income of $59.7 billion, compared with a $3 billion net loss in the 2021 quarter.

4 Comments

  1. Leslie

    Gee I guess where Amazon drops off pallets among pallets daily to many post offices, that need to be processed and delivered for Pennie’s from Amazon. That’s the problem

  2. Mike

    USPS in Newnan Georgia can’t even keep their mailbox in their lot in collection stage. The box is always taped closed 50% of the time. Making customers to park, exit vehicles
    even seniors and handicapped customers to turn in their outgoing mail. Unacceptable and why I now use only private companies. I won’t ship anything by USPS. A den of democrat cockroaches.

    1. Anthony

      Republican Louis Dejoy runs USPS. He was appointed by Don Trump In April 2017, DeJoy was named one of three deputy finance chairmen of the Republican National Committee, along with Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen and the venture capitalist Elliott Broidy. In May 2019, DeJoy became local finance chairman for the 2020 Republican National Convention, then planned for Charlotte, North Carolina.

Comments are closed.

Mark Solomon

Formerly the Executive Editor at DC Velocity, Mark Solomon joined FreightWaves as Managing Editor of Freight Markets. Solomon began his journalistic career in 1982 at Traffic World magazine, ran his own public relations firm (Media Based Solutions) from 1994 to 2008, and has been at DC Velocity since then. Over the course of his career, Solomon has covered nearly the whole gamut of the transportation and logistics industry, including trucking, railroads, maritime, 3PLs, and regulatory issues. Solomon witnessed and narrated the rise of Amazon and XPO Logistics and the shift of the U.S. Postal Service from a mail-focused service to parcel, as well as the exponential, e-commerce-driven growth of warehouse square footage and omnichannel fulfillment.