Year-End Review: 2021: A Year of Transformation; 2022: A Promising Future
In the blink of an eye, 2021 is down to its final week.
Over the past year, both domestically and internationally… Driven by the “dual circulation” strategy, China’s express delivery sector continues to post robust growth while increasingly expanding its reach to rural areas, manufacturing, and cross-border trade.
Under the combined influence of policies, industry development, and other factors, The express delivery and logistics industry is reaching an inflection point in its low‑price competition, with some companies launching tiered service and product offerings, gradually shifting the sector from price‑driven rivalry to a focus on service quality. Under this configuration, Express delivery and logistics companies are expected to gradually enhance service quality and may shift toward becoming comprehensive logistics service providers.

Meanwhile, industry innovation and integration are accelerating, with technology driving industrial upgrading. Express delivery and logistics companies have unanimously chosen to… By ramping up investment in technology, the deployment of advanced logistics equipment such as drones and autonomous vehicles is steadily scaling production capacity and enabling large-scale adoption, thereby accelerating the industry’s transition toward intelligence and automation.
If one were to distill this year’s national policies into just two keywords, they would undoubtedly be… “Carbon neutrality” and “common prosperity.” At the policy level, achieving the “dual carbon” goals has become an essential task for logistics enterprises. Meanwhile, as the industry moves toward high-quality development, how to enhance the sense of fulfillment among logistics professionals is a critical issue that all logistics companies aspiring to go further must address.

At present, logistics, as one of the critical infrastructures underpinning societal operations, is facing… “Kinetic energy transformation.” In the face of evolving domestic and international conditions, a cohort of forward-thinking Chinese logistics enterprises has begun leveraging digital capabilities to venture into the industry’s most complex and high‑value segments. For instance, Cainiao is ramping up its independently operated logistics infrastructure, strengthening its core logistics service capabilities, and making steady, sustained investments across emerging growth areas such as international operations, rural logistics, and supply chain optimization. Looking back at 2021 and looking ahead to 2022, the road ahead for logistics remains long, yet the future holds great promise.

01 Close to the manufacturing industry “Integration”

In delivery Among the “two in, one out” measures, “entering factories” is likely the most pressing component to be advanced this year.
China has a total of More than 3 million manufacturing factories, scattered across over 2,000 industrial clusters, form the backbone of China’s real economy. Against this backdrop, express delivery and logistics companies such as Cainiao, the “Three通One达” group, and Debon are actively exploring new models of factory‑integrated supply chain services, driving deeper integration and collaborative development with the manufacturing sector.
For example, the measures adopted by Yuantong… The end-to-end industry‑wide service strategy—featuring one‑stop service, integrated warehousing and logistics, and seamless after-sales support—as well as Cainiao’s C2M production‑and‑sales model, jointly rolled out with Taote to warehouse‑based merchants—such as customized services and personalized manufacturing—are all highly effective.
In In the C2M model, Cainiao’s origin warehouses play a pivotal role in bridging the past and the future: Through origin‑based warehouses, products straight from the factory’s production line are sold and shipped directly to consumers, eliminating intermediate links and reducing logistics costs by nearly… 30%, and with seamless integration between products and front-end marketing, it not only reduces costs and boosts efficiency but also enables faster delivery. Public records show that Cainiao has currently established facilities across the country. More than 70 origin warehouses cover over 30 manufacturing industry clusters across China.
Since the beginning of this year, as government intervention in global industrial policies has intensified, ensuring the security and stability of industrial and supply chains has become a key objective for China’s logistics sector, while the digital transformation of traditional manufacturing supply chains has also gained momentum.
This year, the multi-tiered dynamic warehouse network solution co-created by Yishang Yujie, Procter & Gamble, and Cainiao has won… ECR Best Practices Award. As a state-owned enterprise under the Beijing municipal government and P&G’s largest distributor worldwide, Yishang Yujie, with Cainiao’s support, successfully addressed the challenges of its supply chain digital transformation. During the Double 11 shopping festival, leveraging real-time insights from its supply chain control tower, Yishang Yujie not only saw order volumes nearly tenfold compared to four or five years ago but also achieved a tangible reduction in inventory levels.

02 Express delivery “The ‘Entering the Village’” has just begun in midfield.
In line with the national policy of common prosperity, this year’s… The “express delivery to villages” initiative has been implemented with remarkable thoroughness.
Over the past few years, with the rise of rural internet and e‑commerce, a wave of rural internet celebrities has emerged one after another. From Li Ziqi to the current star, Zhang Tongxue, most of them have turned to promoting local agricultural and specialty products following their sudden popularity.
It’s nothing unusual for rural areas to produce internet sensations, but truly getting express delivery to… “Going to the countryside” and enabling agricultural products to “move upstream” both require the support of rural express delivery services. At present, Major courier brands have established service outlets nationwide. In 98% of townships, “express delivery access to every township” has been largely achieved, but bridging the gap from townships to villages remains a significant challenge.
The persistently high cost of delivering parcels to rural areas has become the biggest obstacle, making it difficult for local rural economies to not only… “Promoting blood circulation” and even “generating blood”—this is no easy feat.
Let’s take the most straightforward example. In Leiyang, Hengyang, Hunan, Hu Xia, a post‑90s rural delivery station manager, was featured as a model case in a major report by the People’s Daily for delivering packages to nearly ten thousand left‑behind elderly villagers. Her ability to keep going stems largely from the fact that, while handling deliveries, she also helps the villagers sell their goods.
In 2019, Cainiao upgraded rural logistics in Leiyang, integrating e‑commerce resources into the village delivery network and launching services to bring agricultural specialties to urban markets. This “going rural” and “going upstream” channel is precisely the rural‑version Cainiao service station run by Hu Xia. As the village‑level coordinator for Cainiao’s rural delivery initiative, he spent a full five years cultivating the village’s elderly residents into savvy online shoppers and skilled sellers.

Recently, Cainiao has launched again. The “Ten Thousand Villages” initiative. In the local context, in addition to continuing to leverage “joint delivery” to optimize county‑level express‑delivery capacity, the plan also aims to establish 15,000 new village‑level service stations nationwide over the next year and allocate RMB 1 billion in dedicated funds for systematic digital transformation. This is the most crucial step.
According to the plan of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, By 2025, China’s online retail sales of agricultural products are expected to reach RMB 1 trillion—up from just RMB 415.89 billion in 2020, leaving ample room for growth.
As the rural revitalization strategy continues to advance and demand in lower-tier markets keeps gaining momentum, sectors such as express delivery and cold-chain logistics are poised to unlock new growth opportunities, while the benefits of relevant policies will continue to unfold. The road to “entering the village” still has a long way to go.

03 Green logistics is making a tangible impact.
In 2021, the “dual carbon” policy was firmly implemented, and after 13 years of the “Double 11” shopping festival, China’s express delivery and logistics sector has begun to shift its focus from scale and timeliness to new “green” priorities, vying to become a testing ground for carbon reduction.
Overall, This year, the entities accountable for green logistics are increasingly extending to upstream and downstream enterprises, government regulatory agencies, relevant public institutions, and consumers. In addition to conventional measures such as switching to eco-friendly packaging materials and reducing the volume of delivery packaging, leveraging the extensive network of urban and rural communities… With over 100,000 Cainiao stations engaged in green recycling, Cainiao is undoubtedly advancing further and delivering more tangible results on the path of green logistics.
Whether it is launched for consumers “Personal carbon‑reduction statements,” or the “Green Package Initiative” launched in partnership with retailers, or the promotion of “recycle for eggs” programs to broaden consumer participation, What Cainiao aims to achieve is not merely greening individual logistics processes—such as eco-friendly packaging and green‑certified logistics parks—but rather fostering new business models and consumer habits, so that… “Green logistics” has become operational and sustainable.
“Dual Carbon” is far more than just a concept; it will be the defining global theme for the next decade and beyond, and, of course, a battleground among nations—and even among individual enterprises.
“Carbon tariffs” will be rolled out gradually starting in 2023, making it imperative to explore how green logistics can drive green trade. Looking ahead, how to leverage green logistics to enhance the environmental competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises is a pressing issue that our logistics companies must address—and an opportunity they should seize.

04 The trend toward service layering is accelerating.
At 9:00 a.m. on December 8, China’s annual express delivery volume surpassed the 100-billion mark for the first time.
Behind this figure lies the Chinese express delivery industry’s daily service volume. The sheer scale of 700 million people, coupled with the increasingly stratified nature of consumers’ demand for express delivery services. And… The State Post Bureau has also explicitly stated that it has entered China’s express delivery industry, now in the “100-billion‑package era,” is poised for a next phase of high‑quality development.
Looking back on this year, The “turning point for services” arrived in April. That month, SF Express reported a major earnings shock, and the financial results of other leading courier companies were equally discouraging. Shortly thereafter, Yiwu, Zhejiang, issued two consecutive fines: J&T Express and Best Inc. were penalized for engaging in predatory pricing, delivering a heavy blow to the price‑war dynamic from regulators. On April 15, Cainiao Station officially launched free door-to-door delivery for Taobao‑affiliated parcels in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, marking an initial step toward giving consumers greater choice over their delivery options. This service was subsequently rolled out on a larger scale during Tmall’s Double 11 shopping festival.
In early December, the newly launched “Douyin Express” defined door-to-door delivery as a “value-added logistics service” and made it optional for merchants to activate, aiming to enhance the consumer experience. Meanwhile, the State Post Bureau convened an official teleconference, explicitly stating its intention to “promote tiered service offerings across the industry and guard against unfair competition,” which has undoubtedly accelerated the advent of an era of upgraded express delivery services.
In 2021, in response to consumers’ diversified demands for parcel delivery, It has become an industry consensus that express delivery and logistics companies are each exploring door-to-door delivery services. As for how express‑delivery offerings will be categorized and how services will be tiered in the future, we will have to wait and see.

05 Unmanned delivery capacity ramp-up
As “The moonshot project of the AI field,” autonomous driving technology has been around for decades, constantly seeking opportunities to move from concept to real-world deployment. The outbreak of the pandemic has enabled unmanned logistics and delivery technologies to take their first steps in this very application scenario.
Looking back In 2021, the pandemic’s impact on work and daily life persisted, while also accelerating the digitalization and intelligent transformation of logistics services. In the fight against the epidemic, digital and smart applications in the logistics sector—such as “contactless delivery” and “unmanned delivery”—played a crucial role in transporting pandemic‑prevention supplies and ensuring the timely distribution of essential goods to the public, drawing widespread attention across society.

Behind the convenience lies the support of cutting-edge technology, and unmanned delivery has become a new battleground for players like Cainiao, Meituan, and Suning. Over the past year, Cainiao’s autonomous delivery vehicles have been deployed across the country. More than 200 universities, stretching from Harbin in the north to Nanning in the south, have delivered several million parcels to users nationwide. With over 350 Cainiao autonomous delivery vehicles fully deployed, this has become the largest-scale fleet of driverless delivery vehicles at the last-mile stage across China.
Unmanned delivery is also being widely deployed. “Reverse‑driving” forces the upgrading of unmanned delivery technologies, operations, and service capabilities, further propelling the maturation of the unmanned delivery sector. After all, the advantages of unmanned delivery in enhancing logistics efficiency and reducing cross‑infection among personnel are of great significance for bolstering emergency response capabilities in scenarios such as public health emergencies and major natural disasters.
It can be confidently asserted that, with the advent of the Internet of Things, big data, and cloud computing, The deep integration of next-generation information technologies—such as 5G and artificial intelligence—with intelligent facilities and equipment in logistics operations will further enhance the positive contributions of smart logistics, particularly in areas like emergency logistics support.

06 “Breaking the Waves” Opens Up Broader Horizons at Sea
At a time when the demographic dividend has been largely exhausted, despite China’s express delivery volume… For eight years, it has consistently held the top spot worldwide, yet growth in its consumer business has collectively begun to slow. Consequently, within China, the company is pursuing service expansion into lower-tier markets and product tiering. Internationally, pursuing cross-border express delivery and logistics services has become one of the few avenues available to logistics enterprises. “Incremental” selection.
In December, China Logistics Group was officially established and listed, marking the entry of this state‑owned “regular force” into the global logistics arena. With the policy support of the Belt and Road Initiative, enabling China’s domestic logistics system to go global and establish a truly global supply chain—while safeguarding domestic economic stability and people’s livelihoods at home and helping state-owned enterprises grow stronger and more competitive abroad—may well be its original intent.

Chinese private express and logistics companies are also increasingly expanding overseas. This year happens to mark the 20th anniversary of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. In 2020, a pandemic dramatically underscored the critical importance of international logistics supply chains, and also… This has enabled companies like Cainiao, with their global logistics operating capabilities, to seize opportunities and accelerate the development of a Chinese supply chain that aligns with China’s industrial‑chain strengths.
In In 2021, the U.S. business magazine Fast Company released its “Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in the Asia-Pacific Region” list, on which Cainiao made its debut, ranking ninth and becoming one of only two Chinese companies to make the cut.
In December, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport jointly issued the “National Logistics Hub Layout and Construction Plan,” underscoring the critical role of “logistics hubs.” The importance of logistics hubs became particularly evident during the pandemic.
Thanks to its robust investment in global infrastructure and continuous enhancement of technological capabilities, Cainiao maintained a stable, cost‑effective global logistics service throughout the pandemic. Even amid severe congestion at ports worldwide—resulting in tight container availability and limited cargo space—Cainiao’s cross‑border port‑to‑port freight rates remained lower than prevailing market rates. Around 30%.
A few days later, The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is set to enter into force, and the resulting integration of regional trade will inevitably give rise to new logistics demands. The recent departure of the China–Laos international freight train serves as a clear indication of this trend. For express delivery and logistics companies, it is necessary to reassess the overall efficiency of their supply chains from the perspective of regional integration, as new challenges are on the horizon.

07 Employee Care and Benefits in Practice
“If the Earth doesn’t explode, we don’t take a break; if the universe doesn’t reboot, we don’t rest.” A lighthearted remark by CCTV anchor Zhu Guangquan has gradually become part of the daily routine for delivery couriers.
As is well known, Delivery workers face heavy workloads and relatively low overall compensation; if their legitimate rights and interests are not adequately protected, the challenges of attracting and retaining talent will only grow more acute.
Since the beginning of this year, the protection of delivery workers’ rights and interests has received unprecedented attention and support. In July, seven government departments, including the Ministry of Transport and the State Post Bureau, jointly issued the “Opinions on Effectively Safeguarding the Legitimate Rights and Interests of All Delivery Couriers,” which set out a preliminary framework for protecting couriers’ rights and interests, covering aspects such as wages and benefits, social insurance, working conditions, and social security entitlements.

Since then, measures such as increasing delivery riders’ dispatch fees, establishing a trade union for delivery workers, and reducing service‑related fines have been introduced one after another. With investment from ZTO. With 100 million yuan allocated to establish the “Courier Care Fund,” and Cainiao handing out red envelopes to frontline delivery workers to boost their sense of professional fulfillment, numerous express‑delivery and logistics companies are taking action. Creating a work environment that is warmer, safer, and more rewarding for delivery personnel has become an industry-wide consensus.
With just over a month to go until the Spring Festival, Debang and ZTO have already announced one after another that… The 2022 Spring Festival will see no service interruptions. In fact, starting with the 2021 Spring Festival, major courier companies have already maintained year-round operations without closing or suspending their networks. Coupled with the ongoing impact of the pandemic, the delivery sector—being a fundamental service industry—is even less likely to come to a halt.
This Spring Festival, when you see delivery drivers rushing back and forth, don’t forget to say a kind word to them. “Thank you for your hard work.”