Good morning. Scaling back business with one of its largest customers was a gamble for UPS. Now, the company’s second-quarter results suggest that bet is starting to pay off.
The company reported on Tuesday revenue growth of 7.6% year over year in Q2 2026, alongside operating profit growth and margin expansion across all segments. For CFO Brian Dykes, the quarter marked a turning point.
“We finished the drawdown of that Amazon volume at the end of the second quarter,” Dykes told me, referring to UPS’s plan to scale down Amazon delivery volume. “You’re starting to see that show up in the results,” he said.
The strategy marked a major shift for UPS (No. 48 on the Fortune 500), which set out to move away from low-return, capital-intensive volume and double down on higher-margin areas like small and midsized businesses, health care logistics, and B2B delivery. That included the decision to halve its Amazon delivery volume after nearly 30 years of partnership, Dykes first told me last October.
The scale-down unfolded over six quarters and was paired with a broader effort to rightsize the company’s capital and capacity. Together, those moves helped drive both efficiency and profitability. UPS has achieved approximately $4.5 billion in cost savings over 18 months, largely tied to the Amazon pullback and network reconfiguration, with more to come in the remainder of the year, according to the company. UPS eliminated approximately 2 million pieces per day of lower-quality Amazon volume.
