Global Express Company: And then there were three?
Plans to merge two of the world’s big four express-package firms have raised competition worries

Sep 1st 2012 | ATLANTA AND LEIPZIG | from the print edition The Economist http://www.economist.com/node/21561894

THEY work while we sleep, unloading planes and lorries, feeding packages and letters into huge sorting machines, and reloading them for rapid delivery to the four corners of the earth. Each item is coded and tracked on its dizzying journey through many hands. Four companies dominate this express-package business: FedEx and UPS, based in America, and DHL and TNT Express in Europe. They own and run airlines, and fleets of lorries and vans; they operate hubs at airports where the sorting is done.

TNT is the outsider in the group, being smaller and more competitive on price. It is the market leader in two big European countries, Britain and Italy, reckons Transport Intelligence, a research firm. FedEx and UPS are a near-duopoly in the United States. DHL has 32% of the German market, around 40% in Asia and over 50% in central Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

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