Each day, more than 500 million parcels are collected in China, meaning that every second nearly 6,000 items are shuttled into the express delivery process.These statistics, showing average daily operations, were released by the State Post Bureau in July, and reflect the staggering size and progress of the industry in China. The sector, which has maintained its position as the world’s largest express delivery market for 11 consecutive years, is another hallmark of the country’s efficiency and technological innovation, experts said.
From 2014 to 2024, China’s express delivery volume leaped from 14 billion to a whopping 174.5 billion parcels, accompanied by a significant drop in the average delivery price from over CNY14 to CNY8 per parcel. Behind such colossal volume is efficient resource allocation and technological prowess, with the industry evolving from labor-intensive operations to technology-driven processes. “The moment a user places an order to send a parcel on his or her mobile phone, the smart system of a courier company activates a chain of automated responses, including which courier will be assigned to pick up the parcel, which outlet the parcel will go to, which vehicle it will be on, and its scheduled arrival time at various points along the route,” said Yang Qingyue, Public Relations Manager for delivery company ZTO Express.
“The entire process is automated, with heavy human intervention only required at the sending and receiving ends, including interactions with the clients,” Yang said. Zhao Chongjiu, Director of the State Post Bureau, attributed the acceleration of express deliveries in the first half of this year to the expanded use of air services and high-speed rail, and a wider application of unmanned vehicles and stations, together with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. “All of this resulted in more areas being included in service circles, where customers can receive their parcels the next day,” said Zhao. The Bureau aims to further improve the industry through intelligent sorting, encrypted transportation, real-time tracking, AI-powered anomaly detection, and the expansion of unmanned delivery stations, industry experts said.
Sorting has largely been automated. Conveyor belts move at a speed that can carry 240 packages per minute, which is a dizzying speed but still accurate, and requires no human intervention or secondary verification. Sorting centers were not like this a decade ago. Manual sorting used to be labor-intensive. Workers were stationed on either side of straight conveyor belts, with each person responsible for parcels destined for a district. They had to be swift in both their mind and hand movements. Manual operations sometimes collapsed if the workload was too heavy during periods such as the “Double 11” shopping festival, but with the current system, one center can process up to 5 million parcels a day. Covering an area of roughly 2.5 standard soccer fields and equipped with five cross-belt sorters, a sorting center of YTO Express in Shanghai epitomizes the evolution of China’s express delivery industry. Most industry players headquartered in Shanghai's Qingpu district provide an average delivery time within 45 hours nationwide at a cost of just a little more than CNY3 per parcel.
Qingpu, the only Shanghai district connecting to both Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and adjacent to the Shanghai Hongqiao international transportation hub, has become home to the national and regional headquarters of many courier companies. Of every 10 courier parcels delivered nationwide, seven are handled by Qingpu-headquartered express delivery companies. Major players have established large technology divisions to serve as the brain of their operations. At the big data center of YTO Express’ national headquarters in Qingpu, a huge screen shows busy scenes at parcel-sorting centers nationwide, the status of thousands of moving trucks, as well as real-time tracking of the entire delivery process of all parcels from collection to dispatch.
The integration of new technologies, such as unmanned vehicles and drones, is reshaping courier services. ZTO Express has reported a 50% increase in delivery efficiency and a nearly one-third reduction in operating costs since adopting a transportation model combining drones and unmanned vehicles. The use of unmanned equipment is also intended to complete the last mile of express transportation in complex road conditions, such as mountainous and rural regions. So far, about 1,000 unmanned vehicles have been put into operation across the ZTO Express network, covering more than 180 cities,” according to a manager at ZTO Express. Yunda Express is also rapidly introducing unmanned vehicles, with over 2,000 operating in urban communities and rural areas. Yunda is also expanding its use of drones, with five drone routes already in operation. The drones are used for high-value deliveries – such as fresh food and medical supplies – in cities including Hangzhou and Jiaxing, significantly reducing delivery times and labor costs. In 2016, Qingpu was designated as the sole national demonstration zone for the transformation and development of the express delivery industry. Three years later, the modern logistics industry became the first 100-billion-yuan industrial cluster in the district, the China Daily reports.
