Our list of the top 150 U.S. Postal Service suppliers for fiscal year 2010 is now complete. Overall, more postal contractors saw revenue declines than increases. However, the sharp decline in postal spending over the past several years has finally stabilized. Postal Service spending in FY 2010 totaled $12 billion, just a 1 percent decrease from FY 2009. By comparison, postal spending in FY 2009 declined by over 19 percent from FY 2008.
Just over half of all outside spending—$6.32 billion—went to transportation. About half of that figure—$3.2 billion—went to highway transportation. Spending on highway transportation increased by 5.3 percent from last year as the Postal Services shifted mail from air to surface transportation. Spending on domestic air transportation declined by 2 percent to $2 billion. Spending on international air transportation declined by a whopping 26 percent to $449 million. The Postal Service attributes this decline to lower mail volumes, decreases in foreign postal transaction fees, and lower air carrier rates.
Spending on the “Supplies and Services” category totaled $2.2 billion, only a slight decline from the prior year’s level. In the “Facilities” category, where the Postal Service’s roughly 30,000 facilities make it the nation’s largest tenant, spending declined by $86 million to $1.7 billion.