Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Quick question here.
How many online orders have you made this year?
1? 10? Lost count? Well, get this.
China has already delivered over 100 billion parcels in 2025 and it's only July.
That's like 6 ,000 packages zipping around every second.
The delivery game is next level.
Today, we're digging into how it got so fast, so smart, and so massive.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Yang. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yushun in the studio, first on today's show.
In the time it takes to finish the sentence, 6 ,000 parcels have been loaded up and are on their way to doorsteps across the country.
That's right. China has smashed through 100 billion delivery packages this year, 35 days earlier than last year.
Imagine a conveyor belt that never stops, stretching from coastal cities to remote villages with drones, smart warehouses, and coal chains all keeping pace.
In China, this pace of delivery is just business as usual.
What's driving it? Consumer power, green logistics, cutting -edge AI, and a countryside getting its fair share of the shipping spectacle.
So tell us, Yishun, how we got here at 100 billion parcels already.
Yeah, it feels like we're recording this milestone every year now because this is the fifth consecutive year that China has handled over 100 billion parcels.
And the website of the State Post Bureau is showing that the country's express delivery revenue surpassed 718 billion yuan.
That's about 100 billion US dollars in the first half of 2025, which is up more than 10 % year on year.
And I think that answers your question that that kind of increase is driving the whole 100 billion parcels in the year of 2025.
6 ,000 parcels a second.
Now 6 ,000 more. Now 6 ,000 more.
Now 6 ,000 more. It's kind of an astonishing mind -melting number to think about, right?
They actually know, and this is quite fun, they know the package that was parcel number 100 billion.
This information was in the media.
It was an air conditioner system that was ordered.
It was part of the trade -in program and it was shipped in Guangdong province to Changzhou in another part of the country, in the eastern side of the country.
So I guess it was kind of a celebratory moment.
I don't know if that person got a prize or a text message or what, but they know it was an air conditioner, which makes sense considering the time of year that the number was passed.
Yes, indeed. And the numbers are so massive.
But what's driving all this?
What factors contribute to China reaching 100 billion parcels delivered this year so far?
Rising household incomes is absolutely one of the reasons, right?
The website of National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2024 shows that the nationwide per capita disposable income was over 41 ,000 yuan, that's US $5 ,700, a real increase of 5 .1 % after deducting price factor.
In terms of urban and rural areas, the per capita disposable income of urban residents exceeded 54 ,000 yuan, that's 7 ,500 US dollars, and that is a real increase of 4 .4 % after deducting price factors.
And the per capita disposable income of rural residents surpassed 23 ,000 yuan.
anyway all of the increase is showing that more people are buying more and the i think life quality of people is also increasing yeah they have more money to spend both in the rural and urban areas and when you have more money to spend disposable income then you order more packages online and we achieved that that number earlier on in the year i mentioned that the 100 billionth package was an air conditioner, it was part of the trade -in program.
That's another big reason for these numbers as well, because more product categories have been added to the consumer goods trade -in program.
And that program is looking to drive domestic demand and unlock some potential from consumers.
And the support for the program, which is a national program, by the way.
They're promising to ensure continued funding to sustain that government subsidy payment all throughout 2025.
The numbers, too, in terms of investment, if we can call it that, the central government, they earmarked 300 billion yuan.
That's over $41 billion.
They did that in treasury bonds to support local authorities in helping to implement the consumer goods trade -in program this year.
And that's a significant number because that's double that of 2024.
And also, I think another point is that we know that delivery parcels are, like, tightly connected with e -commerce, right?
And that's another key factor that I think that is quite fundamental and in people's, I mean, fundamental shift in people's lifestyles and and shopping habits.
Compared to the past, online shopping has become, I think, one of the most common way people shop.
And I believe that among these 100 billion parcels, not all of them are just successful transactions because you can get a parcel and you don't think you're satisfied with this product and then return it and that's also counted as two times of delivery.
delivery, right? But anyway, the crucial point is that people have gotten used to this and with services like shipping insurance, which means you don't need to pay for the return fee and also the fast delivery and all of these factors, it is making online shopping so convenient and no hassle at all.
Yeah, I think it's just part, you talk about a shift, right?
I think it's just a a shift towards expectations from consumers now and what they want in their shopping online to doorstep, right?
So that it's as easy and as fast as possible for customers.
It's just so, I think we've gotten so spoiled that we kind of forget to appreciate how convenient, it's unbelievable, isn't it?
You know, we're not just talking about things like electronics or furniture or things We're talking about produce.
We're talking meats and vegetables and fruits that can be delivered almost instantly to your doorstep.
And people now have accepted that as a regular part of their life.
Yeah, in China, it's so common, like, one of the ways to gauge or to date this person is, let's just say, okay, well, we need to get like a nail clipper.
And then for Chinese millennials and Gen Z, immediately, they'll pull out their phone and start searching online.
But for my parents generation, they might think, oh, maybe I'll visit the convenience store across the corner.
So for Chinese young people, you're just used to this.
You're very shrewd about all of this.
And that's really bad news for brick -and -mortar stores in a way.
But it's like, yeah, if you want to get rice, cooking oil, that kind of heavy stuff, or mineral water, of course, order online.
And then some delivery guy will do the heavy lifting for you and deliver it to your door.
Sorry, that's a lot of extra work, but we really appreciate it.
And then for the nail clipper who has the time to go to a real life store, a physical store to look that stuff up.
Oh, the other day I wanted to find these batteries that are so niche.
They're as big as sort of like a button.
And then, yeah, order online.
It's just so quick.
And that's sort of the default setting in our minds when it comes to online shopping.
Moving 100 billion parcels takes a serious logistics engine to keep things moving.
So how has China's delivery system developed to handle such massive volume?
Transportation system, of course, is playing a key role in here.
During the last five years, infrastructure advancements such as, we mentioned it, high -speed rail, expressways, and airport networks have enhanced logistics efficiency.
Julie, who is Deputy Director of the Industrial Economy Department at the Bureau's Development and Research Center, said in the first half of the year, delivery companies enhanced their network service capacity by adding parcel consolidation centers, launching new high -speed rail express lines, and expanding air transport networks, and also optimizing the processes.
And a number of regional hubs and express logistics industrial parks with integrated service functions were constructed and put into operation, leading to very improved service quality and capacity upgrades.
I think the holiday periods are a good marker, aren't they?
Spring Festival, that's maybe the biggest one of the year.
May Day is another big one.
During that time, express delivery volumes increased by over 20 % compared to the year before.
And from June 16th to 22nd for the June 18th shopping spree, the average daily parcel volume exceeded 580 million pieces.
So logistically speaking yeah the demand is there from the customers this is how people order their goods now and the companies are able to handle it because of the systems that they have in place they can handle these really large numbers of orders more as you mentioned more shopping festivals no matter it's like traditional Chinese festivals or double 11 they're not traditional but But, yeah, and these shopping, like totally human -made, all of them are human -made.
How to say it? There's no sort of cultural background, religious association with it.
It's just a man -made shopping spree.
It's made for consumption.
Yeah, and I think that's part of people's creativity to make people want to buy and giving people opportunities to buy, I would say, Because now people will have that kind of mind saying, I will wait for that shopping festival to shop.
Yeah, there's a buildup to it, right?
And then when the day comes, it's just like, boom, an explosion.
Yeah, usually you would be collecting coupons, or at least the hope is that for that consumption day, then there are better deals.
And that's why you throw stuff into your virtual shopping cart earlier.
No problem. And then you can see if there's a price fluctuation.
And if it's not, then out of my shopping cart it goes.
Yeah, there are many things you can do to try to find that really good deal.
And I can also give you a couple more factors, sort of a reflection on the fast growth or the boom of the delivery sector in the last decade or so.
So one thing is China's dense cities and high rises really make delivery incredibly efficient.
Curriers can reach dozens of households in one building or block all in a single trip compared to suburban sprawl in places such as the U .S. That's a major time and energy saver, obviously.
And also another factor could be China still has a large pool of relatively low -cost labor, Especially for gig work and delivery and warehousing.
Many of these workers are fast, well -trained and tech -savvy using logistics, apps, GPS and warehouse tech to boost efficiency.
And this mix of human flexibility and tech precision allows China to scale up without losing speed when it comes to delivery.
delivery. And I do, however, have a little bit of a concern to share here.
That is, with our country aging rapidly, give it 10 years or 20 years, how sustainable is this labor -driven model despite the tech?
And the average age of couriers is already creeping up.
To stay ahead, the industry might have to turn to automation.
And we'll see what happens next.
But I think in 10, 20 years' time, the delivery sector might look very different and already we're seeing how smart warehouses ai powered route planning and a lot of oh drones as well autonomous delivery yeah so those things happening and uh yeah how do you see as this whole process is being optimized um it seems like the industry is innovating every day to keep up with this demand one of the one of the areas where where there's been improvement is the rural delivery systems. There was a report from China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and also JD Group.
That's an e -commerce giant here in the country.
And we learned from that, that the rural e -commerce logistics business volume had increased by over 30 % compared to a year before, for the first time, as a matter of fact, in 2025.
And as of now, China has established over 1 ,200 county -level public delivery service centers and more than 300 ,000 village -level comprehensive delivery and logistics service stations.
Here's an example. It takes SF Express, that's a delivery company, it takes them 33 hours to send lychees picked in one part of the country in Guangdong province, that's way down south, to consumers in Urumqi, that's in the northern part of the country, in the Uyghur Autonomous Region, that's 4 ,000 kilometers.
4 ,000 kilometers, and it takes them 33 hours to accomplish that goal.
Yeah, they do it through air transport and then a cold chain service.
It now covers over 2 ,800 county -level administrative regions in the country.
So rural -wise, rural -speaking, there's been really huge improvements there.
And it's funny because the comparison to Amazon in America, the comparison is really, really similar.
That's exactly what Amazon's doing right now.
This is from changestorage .com.
They're planning to, they've announced plans, as a matter of fact, to spend more than $4 billion to expand their rural U .S. delivery network in order to speed up delivery for millions of customers living in those less densely populated areas.
And they've begun offering free same day and next day delivery in more than 1 ,000 smaller cities and towns and rural communities.
I found that to be quite interesting, the comparison there.
I found this to be interesting as well.
Well, the battle between Amazon and Walmart is quite intense as a matter of fact.
And it's that battle for same -day delivery.
And actually, I was surprised to learn that during Amazon Prime Week for this year, which is a major sales event, Walmart actually outperformed Amazon in same -day delivery speeds.
Yeah, so one of the advantages, they say, sorry, I'm talking a lot here, but I thought this was kind of cool.
I was looking into this for like an hour this morning.
One of the advantages Walmart has is they have all these brick and mortar stores, right?
And you mentioned that a little while ago.
How can they survive?
Well, that's one of the advantages because they have like delivery centers, whereas Amazon, they have the advantages in their drones and different things like that and online too.
But yeah, battle is brewing there.
And I was surprised to hear that Walmart was the winner for that particular event.
Yeah, I was also trying to mention that in China as well, a lot of these brick and mortar stores they are trying to fit in this new era of e -commerce as well a lot of these supermarkets they are developing online shopping platforms or just mini programs to let you to buy not only from the shop also online and I think that it's also creating more like tunnels for them to get into more customers and as mentioned as well these high technology you know it's also driving the force for for the development of no matter it's the delivery system or the rural delivery system, like low altitude economy contribute
to the development of the whole development of the rural areas delivery services, like they're using drones as well to deliver maybe in that mountainous areas to actually to finish that last mile problem in rural logistics systems. Yeah, there was an example from Zhejiang province where a delivery that used to take 50 minutes can now be done in eight minutes.
And when customers know that they can get that order that quickly and it doesn't need to be a huge, a huge order of something, right?
It can be a small batch order, and it can be done in the morning and be there within 10, 15, 20 minutes.
Then that's going to encourage a whole different style of shopping because then the shift is not going.
You remember back in the day, I remember with my mom, I'd go to the grocery store once a week.
Saturday evening was grocery time, and we'd get in the car and go to the store and spend maybe an hour and a half there and come back home.
Now, grocery day can be any moment of any day, and you don't need to buy your whole week's supplies or your whole month's supplies.
You can get what you need, just one or two things, just like that.
And that's why this delivery speed is so important for these companies, too.
Yes, and closing that gap of e -commerce, more or less, between rural and urban is seen as a significant step forward. I remember on this show a few years back when we conduct analysis of the e -commerce landscape, often the rural areas, the countryside is basically absent from the discussion because it's just very hard to build that logistics network that can sort of stretch to the countryside.
side. But now, thanks to, you know, the advances in technology and other things, as you guys have mentioned, that is increasingly a reality that is really, I think it's great to see so that our citizens in rural areas can enjoy the same products, if not similar services, one day as well, without the need of stepping outside of their home.
And behind every lightning fast delivery order is a team of hardworking people and a whole lot of smart tech. Think AI -powered sorting, smart warehouses, even drones.
And it's not just muscle and sweat, it's machines and algorithms working hand in hand with humans.
So how exactly has advanced technology helped in handling this massive growth in delivery.
First of all, the infrastructure is, I think, building up the whole ground for the development of it.
The widespread adoption of 5G, the network, the Internet of Things, the artificial intelligence technologies has accelerated the whole intelligent transformation of the postal and courier industry and ai powered models are driving end -to -end delivery sector upgrades from warehousing to last mile delivery enhancing efficiency and reducing costs one example is that i i actually saw some of these little have you ever seen this a little uh cars and they are there are shelves on it and like a several boxes on it and they the delivery guys actually put packages into this car and this automobile and unmanned
automobile actually autonomous yeah they will go to the doorstep to deliver that exact parcel for you yeah it's just like it's like it's like a robot delivering your stuff except it's a vehicle and then yeah the packages are inside inside the vehicle it's it's pretty pretty impressive isn't it yeah the the The Internet of Things AI is playing a huge role.
It's just making it's making it sounds cliche, but it's making the impossible possible because you don't need human hands on all of these packages at all times from the warehouse to the front door.
And also, you know, when we're thinking about these technologies that helping people or making people's life even more convenient, most of the time we will think of like the end or the step that is most closely to the consumer side because we are consumers, right?
So one also another aspect is the parcel pickup stations are being upgraded.
That's what I've been observed.
These are like located in residential communities, but like there is a station for couriers to drop off these packages and users or consumers can pick them up.
And in that stations, now you can like scan a code and each package has a has a tag on it.
And when you scan the code, the tag will shine and beep for you and you will like instantly see which packages are yours.
Yeah. And this isn't just people's homes, too.
They have these in hotels.
When we first moved to China, we were waiting for our apartment.
So we were staying in a hotel for a period of time.
And I ordered food one night and I thought, where's the driver?
Where's the delivery person?
Because it says it's been delivered.
So I don't I don't get it.
Well, in the lobby of the hotel, well, just outside the lobby, there's one of those delivery stations where, yeah, you have to scan the code and then a little beep, the door pops open and there's your food waiting for you.
It's amazing. But I didn't know how to use it because I had just arrived.
So I remember the hotel staff member said, oh, you need to do this and this and this.
And beep, it opened.
And I thought, wow, this is just a huge time saver too, right?
Think about that. That delivery person showed up maybe, I don't know, 60 seconds before I did, maybe a minute and a half or two minutes before I did, but because that delivery person didn't have to wait for me, then they could immediately leave and move on to their next delivery.
Now multiply that by billions of orders and think about how much time is being saved and how much money is being saved.
And think about how much tech that goes into that because the behavior of the food delivery person or any delivery courier person, they're dictated by the algorithm on their smartphone as well.
And then, well, whether the algorithms have pushed people to an inhumane stage that we're almost robotic in how we conduct work is the discussion for a different day.
But with all this movement, there's another part of the equation we cannot ignore, the environmental impact of 100 billion packages.
From recyclable boxes to reusable packaging, and there are limited cases, but still they exist, tape -free designs.
China's delivery giants are starting to go green.
But how far have they really come?
And what's next on the sustainability front?
Yeah, green transportation and green packages are the thing that's been, I think, highlighted, mentioned in recent years' development, you know, state post bureau is saying that express delivery companies in recent years have actively developed green transportation solutions.
And one example is in the Yangtze River Delta region in eastern China, mostly like Shanghai, Changzhou, Wuxi, Jiangsu province, that area, A fleet of intelligent, new energy, heavy -duty trucks has been deployed to make transport more low -carbon and smart, and also packages.
And what I can observe is that more and more cardboard has been used, mostly recyclable packages are being used.
and also yeah reusable um containers that that's kind of new to me because one time i ordered like a package of ice cream and then he like um like ice in it yeah ice packing it but the whole the huge package is in a like reusable container and the delivery guy just called me that you can just leave the package at your doorstep and i'll just pick it up tomorrow come back and pick it up Yeah, which is a really nice thing that that's available.
Yeah, those ice packs, you talk about that.
This is from Economic Daily.
During the peak season for Lychee's, everybody was ordering them, right?
Because they're so delicious and so affordable this year.
One delivery company in Hainan, they were using special preservation boxes that doesn't require any of those ice packs or any pre -cooling.
So that was one example there of, yeah, it would be nice if we didn't have to use those anymore.
more. So environmentally, yeah, you've got billions of packages on the move.
You want to be as aware as you can about the footprint that you're leaving behind with the delivery and use of all these plastics and things like that.
But delivery companies, they're doing what they can.
100 billion parcels and counting.
It's a staggering number that shows how deeply delivery is woven into daily life in China, but has speed and scale redefine convenience.
The real challenge now is making sure that the progress doesn't come at the planet's expense.
The next chapter in this logistics story, not just faster, but cleaner, smarter, and perhaps more sustainable.
