Frederick Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of FedEx Corp., speaks during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Aviation Summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 7, 2019.

FedEx is changing its tune and calling Amazon a competitor.

FedEx CEO Fred Smith, who has often said Amazon is not a competitive threat, said during Tuesday's earnings call that Amazon is one of the five major players in the logistics space — and a company he thinks about every day.

Here's what he said:

"The last thing I'm going to say is we basically compete in an ecosphere that's got five entities in it. There's UPS, there's DHL, there's the U.S. Postal Service, and now increasingly, there's Amazon. That's who we wake up every day trying to think about how we compete against and give the best services to our sales force."

Smith's comment represents a major shift in stance for FedEx, which has long downplayed Amazon's growing presence in the logistics space.

In March, for example, FedEx President Rajesh Subramaniam said during the company's earnings call that Amazon is "not a threat to our business" or "our future growth," despite all the media attention on Amazon's potential to disrupt the industry. Last September, Subramaniam said Amazon's move into the logistics space "should not be confused as competition with FedEx."