Recently, with the release of the December 2020 operating briefings of SF Express, Yunda, YTO, and STO, all the express business operating data of these four major express delivery companies in 2020 have been released. Recently, ZTO Express also revealed that its business volume in 2020 was 17 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 40.3%. For a time, the business volume report cards of the five major express delivery companies have been revealed. Among the listed express delivery companies, only Deppon and Best's report cards have not yet been released.
Under the influence of the epidemic, online consumption has accelerated its development. As an important transportation link in online consumption, express delivery has accelerated its demand. From the above data, we can see that the business volume of these five companies in 2020 exceeded 60.7 billion. In 2020, the total business volume of express delivery service companies across the country was 83.36 billion, with five companies accounting for nearly 73% of the business volume, further increasing market concentration. At the same time, it can also be found that ZTO’s market share exceeds 20%; SF Express has maintained rapid growth, with its annual business volume reaching 8.137 billion tickets, an increase of 68.47% compared with 4.830 billion tickets in 2019; Yunda, YTO, and STO respectively The express delivery business volume was 14.182 billion, 12.648 billion, and 8.818 billion.
During this period, in addition to showing off their achievements in 2020, express delivery companies have gradually begun to set their strategic deployment for 2021. Recently, the 2020 year-end summary meetings and 2021 planning meetings of express delivery companies such as Yunda, YTO, and ZTO have also been held, which basically set the direction of the company and market strategy for the next year. Combined with the recent actions of companies, it is not difficult to see that no one participating in the next four "wars" will be able to escape.
The enduring “price war”
Price war has always been an obstacle for express delivery companies to compete. In recent years, price competition has become even worse. Just during the 2020 epidemic, a round of news from Yiwu that "the lowest price is 0.8 yuan to be distributed nationwide" detonated the entire industry. Now, the results of several major express delivery companies have been released. It can also be seen from the chart that prices are constantly falling, and this price war will undoubtedly extend to 2021. After all, various preferential products, technology and other investments have reduced costs and increased efficiency to a certain extent, leaving companies with some room to reduce prices. Moreover, the franchised networks Fengwang, Jitu, and Zhongyou have just entered the game. They will continue to stir up market prices, and the price war may become even more cruel in the next year.
However, it should be noted that the price war may not continue in the future. According to Liu Jiang, director of the Index Research Office of the Development Research Center of the State Post Bureau and deputy director of the Big Data Laboratory, there are three main reasons. The first is the development stage. Our country's economy has shifted from a stage of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development, and our country's express delivery industry has also accelerated its transition from a stage of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development. After the early price war, the market structure has changed. Second- and third-tier express delivery companies have gradually withdrawn or transformed into specialization. The e-commerce express delivery market structure will transform from monopolistic competition to oligopoly competition. Second is quality drive. Comparing the development experience in Europe and the United States, Liu Jiang believes that my country's express delivery industry will usher in a stage of rapid improvement in service quality after prices continue to bottom out. After the express delivery companies went public, they continued to strengthen their transportation capabilities, processing capabilities and information technology investment, and began to transform into heavy assets. Franchise companies accelerated the self-operation of sorting centers and vehicles, and paid more attention to the improvement of service quality. Again, growth drivers. The State Post Bureau's development idea of ??"two in and one out" has pointed out the direction for enterprise development, and enterprise development faces a broader space.
It can be seen that this price war is a competitive area that express delivery companies are still difficult to avoid, but it may no longer become their main means of competition. After all, this "kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred to yourself" style of play has no obvious benefits and is not a long-term solution, so they may shift their focus of competition next.
“Digital War” to Accelerate Transformation
At the 21st Yunda Holdings Online Conference held a few days ago, Yunda Chairman and President clarified Yunda’s main work in 2021. One of them is to continuously strengthen capacity building and technology construction, accelerate Yunda's transformation from relying on traditional factors to activating all factors, and expand from labor-intensive to capital, technology and data-intensive, and continuously improve Yunda's management data, express delivery digitization, and service Digital and intelligent service guarantee capabilities.
At YTO’s 2021 tone-setting meeting, Pan Shuimiao, president of YTO Express, emphasized that domestically, YTO should continue to improve service quality and promote basic capacity building and cost reduction and efficiency improvement across the entire network. Deepen digital transformation, upgrade products to expand markets, improve customer experience, and continue to reduce costs through refined management.
Both companies simultaneously mentioned accelerating digital transformation when setting the tone for the next year. In fact, in recent years, all major express delivery industries have spared no effort in investing in digital layout. For example, digital equipment and systems have been deployed in distribution centers, transfer stations, trunk transportation, terminal distribution and other links to reduce costs and increase costs. effective purpose. Because companies know that in this process, cost control and service quality have become the two most important indicators. If you want to win in the competition, digital transformation may be the only methodology for today's express delivery companies. As one expert said, express delivery companies have found that when the price of a single express delivery ticket continues to approach the marginal cost, it is difficult to achieve rapid growth in scale simply by relying on price wars. Express delivery companies have chosen the new path of digitalization.
As reported by the media, STO’s digital transformation is divided into three parts: first, move the entire site business to Alibaba Cloud; second, apply the Minas engine; third, realize the digital scale application and upgrade of smart factories The intelligence of the network; YTO follows the development trend of digitalization, continues to increase investment in research and development, strengthens the application of advanced information management tools, and is committed to realizing the digitalization, informationization, and intelligence of business operations and management, and assisting service quality, cost control, and customers. Scientific and precise management and control of services, market expansion, etc.; in mid-2020, Best Group announced the digital warehouse network plan to create a warehouse-based To B and To C omni-channel integrated supply chain solution by integrating warehouse, transportation, distribution and other resources. ; China Post empowers digital upgrades through 5G...
It can be seen that in terms of digital layout, companies have already taken action. They know that the essence of the express delivery industry is service, and digital transformation is to make service quality higher.
The "battle for competition" in the cross-border business sector
The cross-border layout of express delivery companies is nothing new. From the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017, the main development strategy of private express delivery companies was to go public and then cross-border layout, from cross-border to LTL express, cold chain, intra-city distribution, supply chain, etc., to today's instant distribution, online freight, cold storage Chain, air cargo, etc., the business sectors are becoming more and more extensive. In short, companies will immediately extend their service tentacles to whichever field is the most profitable and has the greatest potential.
For example, in terms of community group buying, SF Express recently launched the community group buying platform "Fenghuotai" in a low-key manner; JD.com launched the community group buying platform "Jingxipinpin" and renamed Zhongyou Express to create community group buying Ecological closed loop; ZTO announced a cooperation with Lai Yifen to jointly explore new community retail and other businesses. At the same time, it also applied for the "ZTO City" trademark, which may lay the foundation for the development of community group buying; Deppon is also actively exploring Cooperation points in the field of community group buying...
In terms of cold chain layout, Zhongtong began to press the accelerator button. In September 2020, Zhongtong Cold Chain launched high-standard self-operated warehouses + production and sales locations*** The warehouse building model builds a nationwide warehouse network; Yunda officially opened the beef and mutton cold chain line from Qinghai to Shanghai and is speculated to be about to enter the cold chain market; SF Express and HA Hui launched a joint venture, New HA Hui, which will directly focus on cold chain logistics; Jingdong Cold Chain With technology as the core, and by building a socialized cold chain collaboration network, it has created a full-process, full-scenario F2B2C one-stop cold chain service platform...
In the field of instant delivery, the new version of Yunda City will be launched in 2020 It went online in September and launched the instant delivery service to support errand business in more than 200 cities across the country and develop intra-city business; SF Express's intra-city express B-side business covers more than 500 cities across the country; JD.com's Dada has landed in the capital market...
In terms of online freight, Shunlu, a subsidiary of SF Express, successfully obtained the online freight operation license; after Best Goods obtained the "online freight" license, it became the first batch of 4A-level online freight platform companies in the country through high-quality services. …
In the field of air cargo, JD.com, which has performed particularly well in the field of air cargo in recent times, has started from opening all-cargo aircraft routes to establishing airlines for external recruitment and applied for the JD Airlines trademark; China Tong launched a high-end time-sensitive air cargo product last year, namely "Starlink Time-sensitive Parts"; at the opening ceremony of the Debon Express southwest headquarters base project in September 2020, the relevant person in charge of Debon revealed that Debon is planning to establish Debon Airlines in the next step The company will also plan to land in Shuangliu, taking advantage of the location advantages of Shuangliu International Airport to accelerate the national "ground network + sky network" strategic layout...
It is worth mentioning that in the face of air cargo, With the acceleration of the mixed reform of the three major airlines, competition in this field has become increasingly fierce, and express delivery companies are also actively deploying. For example, SF Express not only unites all parties to accelerate the construction process of Ezhou Airport, but also spares no effort in the investment of all-cargo aircraft and the opening of routes; in the process of investing heavily in international route operations, YTO has made substantial investment in the global aviation logistics hub project invested in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Settled. Of course, there is also China Post, which is the "national team". While it has opened a large number of domestic and international routes, it has also implemented a "passenger-to-cargo" transportation model.
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Putting aside other areas of layout for the time being, online freight, cold chain, air freight, instant delivery, community group buying, etc. are undoubtedly the most popular and popular options at the moment. Areas with great potential, and major express delivery companies have not taken it lightly at all, and are gradually extending their services to the camp in these areas. This trend may become more obvious in 2021.
New forces are striving to "pursue the battle"
At a time when competition in the express delivery industry is intensifying, and when second-tier express delivery companies have basically been cleared, new entrants carry huge sums of money and have strong backing The backers quickly entered the market and completed breakthroughs in average daily order volume with lightning speed.
In addition to the extremely fierce competition among the above-mentioned leading companies, new entrants also performed particularly eye-catchingly in 2020. Recently, it was reported that the daily order volume of Jitu Express has exceeded 20 million orders. Among them, more than 80% of orders come from Pinduoduo. This single volume is a threat to express delivery companies that have been developing for decades. Although it is not enough to shake the status of listed express delivery companies, this new force cannot be ignored after nearly a year of development. Especially Tongda Enterprises, which compete head-on.
In addition, there is also the renamed Zhongyou Express, which has gradually determined its positioning in the process of development and has become the entry point for JD.com’s community group buying express delivery, helping JD.com build a closed-loop ecosystem for community group buying.
At the same time, after Fengwang launched the network, it relied on the brand power of SF Express to achieve rapid volume expansion. The comprehensive cost of the entire network is still far behind that of Tongda e-commerce express delivery. There is no doubt that once Fengwang becomes large-scale After the rollout, if we want to maintain the stability of the outlets at both the collection and delivery ends, the headquarters will definitely need to invest in subsidies on a large scale.
These three new entrants in 2020 have already had a certain impact on the existing structure. Next, opportunities will be equal for both logistics giants who have been working hard for several years and new forces. If they can quickly obtain large-scale orders, there is the possibility of breaking through.
Of course, in these battles, who will be superior, who will be one step ahead, and who will fall off the track, everything is unknown. But one thing is certain, whoever can abandon the "dross" of the past in management, innovate management and services, and break the homogeneity dilemma will laugh best.
Text|Zhu Aihua