Dive Brief:
- FedEx launched a dedicated organization to support healthcare shipping and end-to-end pharmaceutical logistics earlier this month, aiding the company's push to score more high-value shipments, EVP and Chief Customer Officer Brie Carere said in a Q4 earnings call Tuesday.
- The newly launched organization called FedEx Life Sciences is "backed by years of strategic investment in healthcare and life sciences," Carere said. She noted that FedEx has stood up specialized life science centers in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and recently launched a connection between the U.S. and Ireland for temperature-controlled goods.
- FedEx exited fiscal year 2026 with nearly $10 billion in healthcare transportation revenue, she added, up from $9 billion at the end of fiscal year 2025. However, as FedEx lapped the onboarding of new healthcare business that took place in Q4 of 2025, U.S. priority services often leveraged by those shippers posted a slower volume growth rate.
Dive Insight:
Healthcare has become a critical customer segment for FedEx as the company chases more lucrative volume. The new life science services suite will further strengthen FedEx's ability to support complex, time-critical and highly regulated healthcare supply chains, according to Carere.
The strategy has provided a boost to FedEx's financial results. The company grew its volume and revenue per package every quarter this past fiscal year due to its focus on premium business-to-business segments like healthcare and high-value business-to-consumer shipments, according to Carere. In Q4, FedEx's average daily volume grew 2% and revenue per package increased 11%.
Beyond healthcare, FedEx is also seeing double-digit revenue growth tied to shipments supporting artificial intelligence and data center infrastructure buildouts, according to Carere. She emphasized the carrier's near real-time monitoring and white glove handling capabilities as an advantage in the space, with initial time-critical shipments turning into larger, repeatable revenue streams.
"As a recent example, a major global technology customer had a last-minute critical need to move multiple pallets of tech infrastructure to the United States," Carere said. "Through seamless cross-regional collaboration, we executed flawlessly. This example is not a one-off."
As FedEx emphasizes higher-value segments, the company is distancing itself from less-profitable e-commerce shipments. Volume for FedEx Ground Economy, a service focused on lightweight and nonurgent deliveries, declined by about 5% in Q4. Carere said this trend — which is expected to continue for the remainder of the calendar year — is aligned with FedEx's approach to focus on areas "that value our competitive differentiation."
"We are incredibly focused on B2B and high-value B2C," Carere said. "And so even with the decline, the small decline in FedEx Ground Economy, you will note that total volume is up, and we will continue to optimize the network.”
