United Parcel Service (more known as UPS) is a universal package delivery company with the headquarters in the city of Sandy Springs, Georgia, USA. It is a leading provider of logistics and transportation services and the largest package delivery brand in the world.

UPS owns the airline located in Louisville, Kentucky. Its air-hubs are located in the USA, Germany, Hong Kong, China, Canada and other countries.

UPS Structure

The main business of United Parcel Service is the delivery of different packages or documents, but recently UPS started offering more services, like LTL (less than truckload) transportation, supply chain management, etc.

UPS operations are divided into three main segments: the USA Domestic Package (delivery of packages, letters, and documents throughout the USA), International Package (delivery to over 220 countries), and Supply Chain and Freight (contract logistics and forwarding services in over 175 countries). The Supply Chain and Freight segment includes UPS Capital and UPS Store.

Landmarks in the History of UPS

The United Parcel Service started from one hundred dollars borrowed by Jim Casey from his friend. The money allowed him founding the company that is now known as UPS. Let us review the landmarks in the history of UPS

• 1907 – Jim Casey founds the American Messenger Company, headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
• 1913 – The company is renamed Merchants Parcel Delivery. It purchases its first car, T Ford Model, for delivering packages.
• 1919 – Merchants Parcel Delivery changes the name again. It becomes United Parcel Service and expands its services to Oakland, California.
• 1922 – United Parcel Service starts offering the service of “common carrier” in Los Angeles.
• 1924 – The company constructs the 1st conveyor belt system which helps to handle packages.
• 1930 - United Parcel Service starts working on east coast. It opens UPS locations in Newark, New Jersey, and New York City.
• 1952 - United Parcel Service expands services of “common carrier” in California.
• 1953 – The company resumes is air operations through Blue Label Air.
• 1957 – UPS works in five states.
• 1960 – “Common carrier” is started in New York, New Jersey, and New England.
• 1961 – The company adopts its famous third logo with a package and a shield on it.
• 1975 - United Parcel Service is the first company in the package delivery business to serve all addresses in the forty eight contiguous states.
• 1977 – Blue Label Air operations are available to Alaska. United Parcel Service delivers packages to the fifty U.S. States.
• 1981 – UPS acquires the first aircraft for its air delivery operations.
• 1985 - United Parcel Service starts intercontinental air service connecting the USA and several European countries.
• 1989 – United Parcel Service delivers documents and packages to over 175 countries and has UPS locations in 104 countries.
• 1990 – The company launches its aircraft to Asia for the first time.
• 1992 – The electronic tracking of packages is started. United Parcel Service delivers to more than two hundred countries.
• 1992 - United Parcel Service purchases Carryfast and Haulfast and rebrands them to its Supply Chain Solutions.
• 1993 – UPS Logistics is founded to organize management solutions for universal supply chain.
• 1994 – UPS official website starts working on the Internet.
• 1995 – The company buys SonicAir.
• 1996 - United Parcel Service customers may send up to one hundred parcels at a time.
• 1998 – The UPS Capital is established.
• 1999 – UPS becomes a public company. Ten percent share of the United Parcel Service stock is sold in a public offering (NYSE).
• 1999 – UPS purchases Challenge Air.
• 2001 - United Parcel Service begins to launch flights to China.
• 2001 – UPS acquires Mail Boxes Etc.
• 2002 – The company opens an intra-Asia center in Philippines.
• 2003 – UPS changes its famous logo for a new one.
• 2004 - United Parcel Service buys Menlo Worldwide Forwarding, thus entering the heavy freight market. It is rebranded Supply Chain Solutions.
• 2005 – UPS acquires Overnite Transortation and makes it UPS Freight.
• 2007 - United Parcel Service celebrates the 100th anniversary.
• 2012 – UPS is about to purchase TNT Express.

United Parcel Service Today

In 2011, the annual revenue of United Parcel Service was more than billion. Its net revenue was .1 billion.

The company has almost 400,000 regular employees worldwide (about 75,000 of them international). The company owns 1,860 UPS locations.

Every day UPS delivers almost sixteen million packages to more than 8.8 million customers living in about 220 countries. United Parcel Service can deliver documents and parcels to every address in Europe and North America.

The United Parcel Service online service deals with about 32 million tracking requests in a day.

The convenient UPS online locator allows finding the nearest United Parcel Service location.