2021 will become a landmark year in the development history of the express industry. The price war of jigsaw in the past two years has finally turned, the annual number of pieces has exceeded 100 billion, and the industry has entered a new stage of development. In this year, the troublemakers burned money to expand, led to the upgrading of the price war, acquired the fast business of Baishi China and opened a new integration of the industry; The regulators shouted “take a clear-cut stand against the internal volume”, and the intensive introduction of policies is better than that of the previous period
“There is a very big comprehensive change this year, that is, the high-quality development of the express industry has become the consensus of upstream and downstream for the first time. The industry attaches more importance to the whole end of corporate governance, services and network channels than the price itself from next year.” Zhao Xiaomin, deputy director of the postal express special committee of Shanghai Communications Commission and an expert in the express industry, told the securities times.
In 2021, the express industry as a whole will gradually shift from price competition to value driven. After entering the “100 billion pieces era”, how will the express industry develop? This paper will look back on the industry ecology in 2021 and look forward to the trend in 2022 from the income cost framework.
entering the “era of 100 billion pieces”
At 9:03 a.m. on December 8, 2021, the real-time monitoring data on the express big data platform of the State Post Office flickered and fixed to “10000000000”. This is the 100th package this year. A box of Ehime orange sent from zhengshankou village, Duoyue Town, Meishan City, Sichuan Province is carried by Zhongtong express. At this moment, the number of pieces in China’s express industry officially entered the era of 100 billion.
In 2014, China’s express business volume entered the era of 10 billion. In the past seven years, the total business volume of the whole industry has completed a leap from 10 billion to 100 billion.
According to the data of the State Post Office, from 2010 to 2020, the growth rate of China’s express delivery volume remained above 25% every year. At present, it has ranked first in the world for eight consecutive years. In 2021, the industry still achieved high growth in the number of pieces. In the first 10 months, the business volume of national express service enterprises has completed 86.72 billion pieces, exceeding the level of 83.4 billion pieces in 2020. According to the data that has exceeded 100 billion, it is certain that the growth rate will be more than 20% in 2021.
In summing up the development results of China’s express industry in 2021, Chen Kai, deputy director of the State Post Bureau, said that in 2021, express supported the online retail sales, Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) sales, manufacturing output value and cross-border e-commerce sales of physical goods to a new high.
From another perspective, this also reveals the password for the continued high growth of express business this year: the expansion of mail and delivery services from traditional e-commerce to all fields, the progress of mail and delivery network from “going to the countryside” to “entering the village”, and the obvious enhancement of cross-border service capacity.
“In 2022, the growth curve of the number of parts in the industry may become gentle, but the growth trend will not change.” The relevant person in charge of an express enterprise told the securities times.
Bai Wenxi, chief economist of IPG China, also told the securities times that it will maintain a high growth trend next year, but the growth rate may decline. If the high growth rate cannot be maintained, the industry should seek development from improving operation management and achieve performance growth from reducing cost growth.
end of single price war mode
On December 3, Ma Junsheng, director of the State Post Office, presided over a telephone Symposium for express delivery enterprises, pointing out that we should take a clear-cut stand against “inside roll” — prevent unfair competition and oppose acts that harm the interests of the industry and employees.
Express as a “penny pinching” small profit industry, the market has long pursued “price for quantity”, and the price war has also become a pain point in the development of the industry. During the epidemic period in March 2020, the extreme rabbit, founded in Indonesia and established in 2015, entered the Chinese express industry. Through the low price expansion strategy, the extreme rabbit completed 20 million daily orders in only 10 months, and has become an industry troublemaker since then.
In 2021, the price war in the express industry once intensified. In early April this year, Yiwu Postal Administration issued a warning letter to Jitu and Baishi express, pointing out their “low price dumping” behavior. The price of the exploded single ticket of the two companies has been lower than the general cost price of 1.4 yuan per order in the industry.
Until the second and third quarters, regulators frequently took action to rectify the chaos of express prices, and the disorderly low-price competition in the industry was curbed. Among them, on April 22, Zhejiang Province passed the regulations on the promotion of express industry in Zhejiang Province (Draft), which stipulates that express operators shall not provide express services at a price lower than the cost.
Intensive policies have promoted several rounds of price increases in the industry. The latest operation data shows that in November of the traditional peak season, the single ticket price of head express enterprises rebounded collectively.
S.F.Holding Co.Ltd(002352) in November, the business volume of express logistics increased by 13.86% year-on-year; The single ticket revenue reached 15.82 yuan / ticket, with a year-on-year increase of 1.41%, which is the first time that the year-on-year growth rate has been positive since this year.
In fact, this is also the first time that SF’s unit price has become positive year-on-year since June 2019, after more than two years of price war in the express industry.
In addition, in the Tongda system, the single ticket revenue of A-share companies in Yto Express Group Co.Ltd(600233) , Yunda Holding Co.Ltd(002120) , Sto Express Co.Ltd(002468) November also increased year-on-year. Among them, Yto Express Group Co.Ltd(600233) has the largest increase. The unit price has continued to achieve positive year-on-year growth since August. The unit price in November increased by 12.33% to 2.59 yuan / ticket compared with the same period last year.
From the main grain producing areas, under the strengthened supervision, the single ticket price of industrial express in Yiwu reached 2.94 yuan in October, realizing a positive year-on-year growth for the first time since February 2020. The unit price of tickets in November was 3.31 yuan, up both year-on-year and month on month.
Zhao Xiaomin believes that the end of the single price war mode in the express industry is also one of the major characteristics of the industry in 2021.
A footnote is that in the first ten days of this month, Jitu purchased Baishi China Express business for 6.8 billion yuan to complete the delivery.
In addition, many leading enterprises and institutions believe that the price of Express single ticket has returned to a reasonable range, and they are optimistic about the follow-up trend as a whole.
“We judge that the express industry is unlikely to fall into the previous price competition again. At the same time, we cautiously expect that the industry price is unlikely to decline significantly next year, and there is room for upward repair.” Yunda Holding Co.Ltd(002120) said when receiving the research last week.
Zheshang Securities Co.Ltd(601878) analyst Kuang Peiqin believes that in the short term, the absolute range is still increasing after the price increase. The resumption in 2018-2020 shows that after the peak season of e-commerce promotion and express delivery in the fourth quarter, the unit price of e-commerce express tickets generally fell month on month, but the overall price is still higher than that before entering the peak season. After the peak season, even if the price decreases marginally month on month, the absolute increment still exists, which is still expected to bring profit thickening.
capital expenditure or high decline
On April 8 this year, “express brother” S.F.Holding Co.Ltd(002352) announced that it is expected to lose 900 million yuan to 1.1 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2021. The next day, SF’s share price fell by the limit. Facing the rare single quarter loss, Wang Wei, chairman of SF, apologized at the shareholders’ meeting. For historical data, please stamp “Shunfeng’s amazing performance thunder, a loss of nearly 1 billion in the first quarter! Why the loss and the stock price will fall sharply? Experts interpret it this way…”
SF no longer “downwind” has also aroused great concern in the market. At that time, the reporter interviewed a number of experts and industry insiders. The respondents generally believed that SF’s performance in the first quarter belonged to the problem of investment rhythm in capital expenditure, which was a normal phenomenon in expansion.
In recent years, SF has intensified its business transformation and upgrading, accelerated the layout of science and technology, supply chain, e-commerce express, foreign markets and other fields, and continued to invest in logistics infrastructure, equipment and venues.
Affected by the epidemic last year, the necessary capital expenditure of SF was delayed to a certain extent. It is understood that SF has increased temporary resource investment since the fourth quarter of last year to undertake increment, resulting in cost pressure. At the same time, we began to increase capital expenditure investment and upgrade the production capacity of intermediate transfer automation. According to the third quarterly report, SF paid 13.944 billion yuan in cash for the purchase and construction of fixed assets, intangible assets and other long-term assets in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of nearly 90%. In addition, by the end of the third quarter of this year, the net cash flow generated by the company’s investment activities had reached -23.384 billion yuan, compared with -16.751 billion yuan in the same period last year.
Several brokerage research reports pointed out that the growth rate of capacity investment in the express industry will probably slow down from 2022, and the capital expenditure level of leading enterprises including SF is expected to fall.
Yunda Holding Co.Ltd(002120) also introduced the future capital expenditure in the latest research activities. The company said that in recent years, it has always adhered to long-term thinking and done long-term things. Therefore, based on the strategic considerations of capacity matching, capacity stability and long-term operating cost optimization, the company has increased investment in core assets and core resources such as distribution center, automation equipment and efficient transportation capacity, consolidated its core competitive advantage, and increased the scale of capital expenditure. According to the existing core assets, it is expected that the alternative construction of the distribution center and the self owned proportion of transportation capacity will be basically completed in the past two years. At the same time, the scale of capital expenditure of the company will be gradually narrowed. In the long run, the company will measure the relationship between efficiency and capital investment.
Under the influence of the above three factors of volume, price and cost, from the profit side, what stage is the current industry value restoration in?
Kuang Peiqin believes that the value repair of e-commerce express can not be generalized. We should distinguish three levels and correspond to two stages. E-commerce express value repair is divided into three levels: first, policy control is gradually tightened; second, price returns to a reasonable range; third, profit repair and bottom reversal. In the second and third quarters of this year, with the introduction of policies, prices have gradually returned to a benign trend. After the policy control and price return, they are about to enter the most essential level of value restoration, that is, the level of profit restoration.
“Looking forward to 2022, after the pricing power returns to the leader again, we are still optimistic about the industry price. If we are extremely cautious, even if the apparent ticket unit price drops next year, our judgment will be driven by the single ticket cost, then the industry will still return to” scale – Single ticket cost – unit price ” “With the healthy clearing path of positive circulation, the leading profit will still take the lead.” Kuang Peiqin said.
For the comprehensive profitability of the express industry in 2022, Zhao Xiaomin holds a relatively cautious view, “we should still consider the whole economic environment next year, the next monetary policy, including the stimulation of consumption, and whether there will be major policy release, and then evaluate the expectation of next year’s profit index.”
high quality development into the main line
Since this year, the public utility attribute of the express industry has been continuously strengthened, and all sectors of society pay high attention to the extreme events that occur from time to time in the industry. Since December alone, there have been “sudden death of the elderly without delivery to the door”, “the courier was complained that he crushed the package in front of the customer”, “Shentong network threw the express suggestion to send Shunfeng” and other events.
The above events also reflect the long-standing disadvantages of disorderly competition and non-standard construction of end outlets in the industry. In fact, regulators also continue to pay attention to the healthy development of the industry. In 2021, express related policies were intensively introduced, which exceeded the previous period.
In addition to paying attention to the market order, the regulatory authorities also pay special attention to protecting the rights and interests of “express brother” this year. For example, on June 23, the Ministry of transport, the State Post Office and other seven departments jointly issued the opinions on ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of courier groups, put forward corresponding measures for unfair market competition, regional differentiated fee distribution and other issues, and required to ensure the reasonable labor remuneration of couriers and implement the main responsibilities of express enterprises.
“The mode of single price war for express enterprises has ended. With the adjustment of express delivery fee and the rise of express price, new requirements will be put forward for the governance structure, network stability, capital operation and end incentive mechanism of express enterprises. After the rise of express price, how to follow up the express service is the biggest pain faced by the express industry. For fast delivery For enterprises, how to gain advantages in services is undoubtedly the key to breaking through the highly homogeneous competition among enterprises. ” Zhao Xiaomin said.
From the perspective of development path, major express companies also realize the importance of transformation. In addition to taking many measures to improve service quality, they all focus on technology driven this year.
Taking SF as an example, relying on its comprehensive logistics service capability and logistics technology strength, SF continues to penetrate into the supply chain and industrial Internet of various industries. Relying on the capability of “diversified chassis + logistics technology”, SF provides full link digital solutions, and goes deep into all links of the production and operation chain, such as order planning, procurement performance, production manufacturing, delivery and operation, It provides a full range of services such as business consulting, inventory optimization, warehouse network planning, warehouse management, transportation and distribution and reverse logistics. At present, it has covered eight leading customers in FMCG retail, clothing, shoes and hats, drinks, auto parts, 3C, medicine, household appliances and finance and insurance.
Yto Express Group Co.Ltd(600233) recently said that in the future, the company will continue to comprehensively promote digital transformation, strengthen core competence construction, firmly implement the service quality strategy, focus on deepening cost control, create differentiated product and service system, and consolidate the core competitiveness of the market.
Yunda Holding Co.Ltd(002120) said that at present, the company is deeply building a multi-level comprehensive logistics “ecosystem” with express as the core and integrating the coordinated development of surrounding industries, new businesses and new formats; Under the new pattern environment, ensure the formation of new breakthroughs and new situations in the company’s business volume, market share, product stratification, revenue and profit, scientific and technological level and industrial chain extension, and build a second growth curve.
(E company)
