Allied Express has reported volume growth of just under 14 per cent year-on-year, with the company’s focus on oversize and bulky business-to-consumer deliveries proving to be a highly effective competitive strategy in Australia’s crowded courier market. The growth has come with even stronger bottom-line improvement, reflecting disciplined pricing and a selective approach to new business.
Growth Drivers
Parent company Freightways Group attributed Allied Express’s performance to three reinforcing factors: growth from existing customers expanding their shipping volumes, new business wins in underserved market segments, and service improvements driven by investment in larger depots and automation.
The existing customer growth is particularly significant, as it indicates that businesses already using Allied Express are choosing to ship more through the network rather than splitting volumes across multiple carriers. In the courier industry, deepening existing relationships is typically more profitable than acquiring new customers, as it increases drop density and route efficiency.
New business wins have been targeted at sectors where Allied Express’s handling capability for non-standard parcels provides a clear advantage. The company has implemented updated rate cards and margin models designed to capture value from deliveries that other networks either decline or price punitively.
The Oversize Advantage
Allied Express’s competitive moat lies in a structural gap in the Australian courier market. Mainstream parcel networks — including the major players — are built around automated sortation systems optimised for small, uniformly shaped packages. Items that don’t fit those systems — furniture, sporting equipment, appliances, building materials, and other bulky goods — are either refused or handled at premium rates with reduced service reliability.
Allied Express has built its network specifically for this category, with facilities, fleet, and operational processes designed to handle oversize, heavy, and awkwardly shaped items as standard. The company’s Sydney headquarters at Bankstown Aerodrome features a custom-built sortation system — reportedly the first of its kind globally — designed specifically for bulky parcels, while a new 9,000-square-metre satellite depot in Melbourne was opened in 2025 to handle growing Victorian volumes.
Fleet and Network
With a fleet of over 1,000 vehicles, facilities in all mainland capital cities, and more than 50 regional agency partners, Allied Express operates the infrastructure needed to provide national coverage for oversize deliveries. The combination of owned depots and a contractor-based delivery model — similar to the approach used successfully by parent Freightways in New Zealand — provides operational flexibility to scale capacity with demand.
Market Implications
As e-commerce continues to expand into product categories that were historically purchased in-store — furniture, fitness equipment, outdoor gear, white goods — the demand for reliable delivery of oversize items is growing faster than the standard small-parcel market. Allied Express’s results demonstrate that there is both volume and margin available for operators willing to invest in the handling capability that this segment requires.
For online retailers selling bulky products, the availability of a dedicated national courier network for oversize items addresses one of the most persistent friction points in the e-commerce fulfilment chain.