The Trucking Industry – Defined by the masses

The American trucking industry currently generates ~$700 billion a year in revenue and is responsible for approximately 5.8% of all jobs in the United States. To put that into perspective, the American trucking industry on its own would be the 33rd largest economy in the world and dwarfs the oftentimes hyper-valued software-as-a-service industry which produced $158.2 billion dollars in revenue in 2020.

Beyond its behemoth size, trucking is especially different from software-as-a-service, an industry that makes up a disproportionate share of venture capital portfolios, in a very key respect – trucking isn’t dominated by a series of oligopolies. There are 900,000 revenue-generating trucking companies in the United States, 96% of which own fewer than 20 trucks. Compare that to software-as-a-service where there are an estimated 11,000 companies in the world. Unlike software-as-a-service and many other nü-American industries, trucking is very much defined by a mass of small firms, the large majority of whom, by virtue of their size, lack meaningful economies of scale.

“24 Fascinating Facts About the Trucking Industry in the US.” Business Insider, https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trucking-industry-facts-us-truckers-2019-5-1028248577

“Why Driving Big-Rig Trucks Isn’t a Job Americans Want to Do Anymore.” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/05/why-driving-big-rig-trucks-isnt-a-job-americans-want-to-do-anymore.html