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Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, said Monday that the company is poised to become the largest U.S. package delivery service by early 2022, overtaking longstanding shipping rivals UPS and FedEx.

“We expect we will be one of the largest carriers in the world by the end of this year,” Clark told CNBC’s Becky Quick in an interview on “Squawk Box.” “I think we’ll probably be the largest package delivery carrier in the U.S. by the time we get to the end of the year, if not in early ’22.”

Amazon has been steadily building up vast logistics and fulfillment operations since a 2013 holiday fiasco left its packages stranded in the hands of outside carriers.

Leaving out treats for Santa is a holiday tradition, but what about snacks for Santa’s helpers?

Not the elves at the North Pole, but delivery drivers from places like Amazon, FedEx and UberEats who make our holidays run smoothly by working hard to deliver the things we need to make holiday magic happen.

Each holiday season, we see Pinterest-worthy pictures of overflowing snack baskets set out for delivery drivers and catch headlines showing viral doorbell videos of drivers’ reactions to treats left along their delivery routes. When I first saw these sweet ideas, I knew I wanted to leave out snacks for the drivers making rounds in my neighborhood.

Jenny Rosado, a delivery driver for United Parcel Service (UPS) in Stratford, Conn. has worked for the company for 30 years.

“You feel appreciated and loved,” Rosado tells Yahoo Life of customers’ kind gestures. “You know that they appreciate what you do for them.”

Richard Metzler ordered automation equipment as part of a plan to double the volume his small parcel delivery company could handle this holiday season. There’s just one snag: The machinery is stuck on a ship offshore amid a global supply-chain crunch.

“The timing just couldn’t be worse,” said Metzler, chief executive officer of regional courier Lone Star Overnight, who is racing to meet demand from clients such as Best Buy Co. and Nordstrom Inc. in the seven states where LSO delivers. “We’re just having to throw more bodies at it.”

Retailers have increasingly turned to regional couriers like LSO to help shuffle packages that delivery titans United Parcel Service Inc., FedEx Corp. can’t — or won’t. This holiday season is going to depend more than ever on operators taking on business the two dominant couriers are shunning in a rapidly growing delivery market. It’s unclear if the smaller players are ready as they grapple with everything from transportation logjams to worker shortages.

UPS and FedEx have opted to raise prices aggressively and turn away lower-yielding business rather than rush to build capacity. That has been a shock to shippers that rely on those two companies which, along with the U.S. Postal Service, control about 95% of last-mile deliveries of third-party parcels.