United Parcel Service

UPS (formerly known as United Parcel Service) is the world's largest package delivery company, delivering over 13 million packages a day to over 200 countries around the world. It has recently expanded its operations to include logistics and other transportation-related areas.

UPS is well known for its brown trucks also known as package cars. The color brown that UPS uses on its vehicles and uniforms is called Pullman brown after the railroad sleeper cars created by George Pullman which used the same color.

Major competitors include United States Postal Service, FedEx and DHL. Historically UPS only faced competition from the US Postal service for the inexpensive ground based delivery market. However, Fedex recently expanded into the ground market by aquiring Roadway Package Service and rebranded it as Fedex Ground. In addition, DHL aquired Airborne Express. This aquisition signficantly increases DHL's presence in the USA which will add more competition to the ground delivery market.

Brief History

1907 American Messenger Company (later UPS) was founded by James E. Casey in Seattle, Washington. The company delivered messages and small packages in the Seattle area.
1913 Merger with Evert McCabe, company renamed Merchant Parcel Delivery.
1919 Renamed United Parcel Service and expands to Oakland, California
1961 Familiar shield logo designed by Paul Rand introduced.
1975 UPS completes exapansion to all 48 contiguous states in the United States. UPS also begins International service to Canada.
1997 On August 4 185,000 Teamsters union UPS hourly employees walked off the job after contract negotiations stalled. UPS was effectively shut down for weeks and it lost a great deal of business to competitors.
1999 UPS changes from a private to publicly traded company. At the time the largest Initial Public Offering in United States history.
2003 On March 25 UPS unvieled a new worldwide branding program including a new logo, web site and the redesign of all 66,000 UPS vehicles. The slogan "Synchronizing the World of Commerce" is introduced.

External Links

Official website