Sales rose more than 20 percent this quarter to $ 21.5 billion, while net revenue doubled to $ 890 million.
Much of the growth has been due to the growing demand for products that people buy from their phones and computers – a trend that is not going away any time soon.
“We remain excited about the diversification and evolution of the e-commerce market,” Brie Carere, FedEx’s director of marketing and communications, said during a conference with analysts on Thursday night. “Some of our largest retail customers have reported double and even triple-digit e-commerce growth rates by 2020.”
Carere added that e-commerce accounted for 20% of US retail sales in the fourth quarter of last year, significantly above pre-pandemic levels.
Carere has dropped the worry that FedEx would lose momentum as more people venture out and shop in the physical world again, now that vaccines against Covid-19 are on the rise.
She acknowledged that there is “the potential for a short-term slowdown in e-commerce shopping”, but that digital commerce will continue to grow as a percentage of the global retail market.
FedEx CEO Fred Smith said during the analyst’s call that the company transports vaccines to more than 220 countries and territories around the world.
Vaccine deliveries so far have been “almost impeccable,” he added, noting that “you can count on your hands the number of problems with the number of vaccines we have delivered in the millions.”