Retail

Amazon is ratcheting up fast delivery and raising the stakes for rivals like Walmart

An Amazon Prime delivery van is parked outside Amazon headquarters in Seattle, Washington on January 29, 2026. US online retail and cloud computing giant Amazon said on January 28 it will cut 16,000 jobs worldwide as the company tries to streamline amid its major push into AI. (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP via Getty Images)
Amazon sets a new delivery speed record in 2025, with over 13 billion same- or next-day deliveries worldwide. Jason Redmond / AFP via Getty Images
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Amazon set a new Prime speed record in 2025.

On Tuesday, Amazon said that it delivered more than 13 billion items worldwide the same or next day last year, marking its fastest performance ever and the third consecutive year it has broken its record.

Prime members in the US received over 8 billion same or next-day deliveries, a more than 30% increase from 2024. Groceries and everyday essentials accounted for about half of those orders, according to company data shared in a press release.

Amazon said it delivered a record 4 billion grocery and everyday essential items the same or next day in the US and expanded free same-day and next-day delivery to more than 4,000 smaller cities and towns. In those areas, everyday essentials accounted for the majority of repeat purchases, and the number of monthly rural customers nearly doubled.

Delivery speed has become a central battleground in retail, and the expansion puts Amazon in more direct competition with Walmart.

Walmart has leaned on its network of more than 4,600 US stores to offer same-day delivery to the vast majority of households and has promoted ultra-fast fulfillment, including drone deliveries.

Amazon has been pushing the limit of speed in recent years. The company expanded its Amazon Now service in 2025, which promises delivery in under 30 minutes, in markets such as India, Mexico, and the UAE, and is testing the option in the US and UK.

Business Insider previously reported that Amazon has been reshaping its logistics network with larger same-day warehouses, a new upstream distribution layer known as 1DC, and micro-fulfillment centers inside select Whole Foods stores.

In its most recent earnings report, Amazon reported roughly $67 billion for the quarter in net sales from online stores.

Are you an Amazon delivery worker who makes same-day or next-day deliveries? Contact this reporter via email or text/call/Signal at 646-768-4750.

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Katherine Li, West Coast breaking news reporter at the Business Insider.
Katherine Li
Katherine Li is a reporter on Business Insider's West Coast business news team. She covers career,  the future of work, and how AI is changing hiring practices and workplace trends.Previously, she was a newsroom fellow who wrote international breaking news and produced newsletters for Semafor. Before that, she wrote about climate policies for The Lever, covered the AAPI community for the SF Chronicle as a freelancer, and wrote about the 2019 Hong Kong protests as an intern for The New York Times.She is an alumna of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and a graduate of the international journalism program at Hong Kong Baptist University with minors in French and English literature.  Email Katherine at katherineli@insider.com and follow her on Bluesky @katherineli.bsky.social
Dominick Reuter
Dominick Reuter
Dominick Reuter is a senior retail reporter for Business Insider, primarily covering Walmart, Target, and Costco. His stories tend to focus on issues and trends that affect employees and customers.Prior to joining BI in 2019, Dominick worked for more than a decade as an independent photojournalist covering a wide range of stories for global wire services and newspapers, including Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and Agence France-Presse.Dominick studied photojournalism at Boston University and later earned a Masters in business and economics journalism from Columbia University.If you're an employee or customer with a story to share, please contact me via email or text/call/Signal at 646-768-4750.