Logistics « Week In China

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Logistics

Alibaba and JD unveil delivery robots
Jun 8, 2018 (WiC 412)

Self-driving vehicles have been generating a lot of buzz, but much of it for the wrong reasons. Back in March, an experimental Uber vehicle, operating in autonomous mode, knocked down a pedestrian in Arizona in the first fatal accident of its ...

SF Express sets out to prove Jack Ma wrong as it pushes into pharma
May 25, 2018 (WiC 410)

"Many logistics firms have gone public. But I could not see any difference in them before and after their listings, except [their bosses] becoming one of the richest tycoons, which is meaningless,” Alibaba’s Jack Ma declared, as he chided ...

Cainiao’s row with SF Express sets the scene for a longer struggle
Jul 14, 2017 (WiC 374)

Yuetan is a Chinese term that means to set a date and talk. It has a specific political context too. When a private sector firm is told that the authorities in Beijing are asking for a yuetan, it’s usually because they are ...

ZTO’s New York IPO is the biggest for a Chinese firm since Alibaba’s in 2014
Oct 28, 2016 (WiC 344)

Wells Fargo was founded as a banking and delivery firm during the California gold rush in the 1850s: buying and delivering gold and other valuable goods. Imperial China’s banks started with a similar business model. At a similar time Shanxi’s ...

SF Express seeks big fundraising to finance its new airport
Jun 3, 2016 (WiC 327)

Seven years ago the Dalian-based tailor Dayang Trands celebrated its 30th anniversary with a promotional film featuring a certain Warren Buffett. “I threw away the rest of my suits,” the Berkshire Hathaway chairman confided in the video, ...

China’s express delivery firms take competition to the skies
Oct 23, 2015 (WiC 300)

On September 26, a Boeing 737 took off from Hangzhou, bound for Chengdu, marking for Yuantong Express the inaugural flight of its new Yuantong Airmail operation and launching the first air delivery service based in the East China ...

Why Alibaba’s biggest e-commerce rival might be SF Express
Jun 13, 2014 (WiC 241)

"Jack Ma’s worst nightmare has arrived,” China Youth Daily declared last week. Regular readers of WiC will be forgiven for thinking that this is yet another story about the ongoing feud between Alibaba and Tencent. Not so. This time around ...

SF Express brings in state firms to boost growth
Nov 1, 2013 (WiC 214)

SF Express is often hailed as China’s answer to Fedex. But the courier has been very low profile – most people got their first glimpse of its chairman Wang Wei in late 2011, after interviews in three Party-run newspapers. In this rare media ...

SF Express
Mar 1, 2013 (WiC 183)

SF Express – the Chinese version of Fedex – never advertises. The courier grows its reputation via word of mouth. Its founder Wang Wei refused all media interviews until 2011. Wang kept such a low profile that in 2010, Hong Kong’s Next ...

Courier industry embarks on dramatic journey
Jul 30, 2010 (WiC 71)

Economics textbooks will tell you that perfect competition – a market with plenty of buyers and sellers – is a desirable state of affairs. But China’s policymakers aren’t so sure they agree, at least not when it comes to the express ...