Xinhua Finance and Economics, Beijing, May 16 (Reporter Li Tangning) China Communications Express announced its unaudited financial performance for the first quarter of 2024 on May 16. The data shows that the company's package volume in the first quarter increased by 13.9% year-on-year to 7.171 billion pieces, and the adjusted net profit increased by 15.8% to RMB 2.2 billion. The net cash flow generated from operating activities was RMB 2 billion.
Lai Meisong, founder, chairman, and CEO of Zhongtong Express Group, said, "In the first quarter of this year, the industry's parcel volume increased by 25.2% year-on-year, far exceeding expectations. The booming development of new live streaming e-commerce and social platforms has stimulated online consumption by the public, driving the growth of parcel volume. On the other hand, it has also led to an increase in the proportion of low priced e-commerce parcels. At the same time, the competition for parcel prices has further intensified, especially in the 'grain producing areas'. The proportion of unprofitable or even loss making parcels in the industry has become more. Zhongtong adheres to the bottom line of' not making loss making parcels', maintaining healthy growth in profits. Although the parcel volume market share has decreased compared to the same period last year, our profit market share has increased." Further improvement has proven the effectiveness of our strategy
Lai Meisong stated that Zhongtong's consistent strategic goal is to maintain balanced development in three aspects: service quality, business scale, and profitability. "At the beginning of 2024, we shifted our strategic focus to service quality. While maintaining a reasonable business scale and good profit level, we also paid more attention to creating differentiated products and services to meet customers' diverse and personalized needs, and enhance consumers' awareness and recognition of the Zhongtong brand. The transformation of China Express from high quantity to a combination of quantity and quality is an inevitable trend. We prioritize service quality, break through homogeneous competition, upgrade product structure, improve the profitability of branches and small parcel clerks, and create a moat for the sustainable development of Zhongtong."
Yan Huiping, Chief Financial Officer of Zhongtong Express, said, "We believe that the Chinese economy will gradually stabilize and improve, and the long-term development prospects of the express delivery industry are still broad. Focusing on ourselves and creating differentiated products and services is an inevitable choice for Zhongtong's sustainable and healthy development and long-term value creation. We expect the industry growth rate to be between 15% and 20% this year, and based on the principle of not making loss making express delivery, we accept a certain range of market share decline. The company maintains the guidance of the previous year's business volume of 34.73 billion to 35.64 billion, with a growth rate of 15% -18%."
From the perspective of business data, as of March 31, 2024, Zhongtong has 96 sorting centers, over 31000 pick-up/delivery points, more than 6000 direct network partners, approximately 3800 trunk transportation routes between sorting centers, and more than 10000 self owned trunk vehicles. Among them, about 9100 self owned vehicles are high capacity vehicles with a length of 15 to 17 meters.