The number of online freight platforms has surpassed 3,000! These six major trends are taking shape.

Online freight has gone through Over eight years of development, the number of market participants surpassed 3,000 in 2023, with an increasing number of shippers choosing to manage their operations on the platform—some even routing nearly half of their orders through it.

It is clear that online freight platforms are transitioning from… “Freight scalping,” once a mere yard‑management service, has permeated the operational layers of contract logistics and manufacturing firms, evolving from a tool for information matching into an indispensable pathway for enterprises’ digital and intelligent supply-chain transformation.

Currently, the policy on online freight transportation has been extended to… By the end of 2025. Over the past few years, what characteristics has online freight transportation exhibited? How have the leading players been performing in terms of growth? And where do they head next?

Entering the deep waters

Online freight transportation has become an indispensable pathway for supply chain upgrading.

Data shows that as of As of the end of December 2023, there were 3,069 online freight enterprises nationwide (including branch offices), with access to 7.989 million vehicles and 6.476 million drivers. Throughout the year, a total of 130 million waybills were uploaded, representing a year-on-year increase of 40.9%.

From From the 2016 pilot program for non‑vehicle‑owning carriers, through 2020—the “inaugural year of online freight”—to the current extension of online freight policies until the end of 2025, these policy shifts have propelled the growth of the industry’s leading players. Meanwhile, the wave of O2O‑driven startups rooted in the “Internet Plus” model is gradually moving into the physical realm, with logistics increasingly penetrating deeper into the broader industrial landscape.

During this process, the evolution of online freight can be broadly divided into three stages:

1) The O2O wave is boosting the efficiency of supply-and-demand matching.

The initial entry point for online freight platforms was to upgrade the traditional dispatch model—reliant on phone books and small blackboards—to an online matching system, enabling shippers and carriers to match supply with demand across a broader geographic scope. At the same time, this approach significantly enhances the precision of demand‑supply matching, boosts information‑matching efficiency, and reduces drivers’ waiting times as well as idle mileage for vehicle assets.

Over the past several years, this model has matured considerably and has established a stable top-tier landscape across various sub‑segments, including intercity and intra‑city services, driving the industry toward greater scale, consolidation, and efficiency.

For example, in the intercity logistics market, Manbang has emerged as an industry leader thanks to its commanding market share and has already gone public. In the same-city delivery sector, Kuagou Dache has listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, while Huolala has also filed its prospectus with the exchange.

2) Help contract logistics enterprises gain clear visibility into their suppliers.

As the scale of online freight capacity expands and carrier‑side penetration rises, the granularity of driver and shipper tags is steadily refined, enabling an increasing number of contract logistics firms to realize improvements in operational costs and efficiency through online freight platforms. Particularly appealing is the platform’s ability to help these companies manage their capacity more effectively and build a private‑domain capacity pool.

3) Help the manufacturing sector gain clear visibility into its supply chain.

Today, as the industry seeks effective ways to reduce overall logistics costs, an increasing number of manufacturing firms are reexamining their supply chains, aiming to cut expenses and boost efficiency through measures such as shortening supply chains and leveraging digital and intelligent technologies. Meanwhile, the scope of online freight platforms is expanding beyond mere transportation, extending into areas like warehousing, last‑mile delivery, and terminal operations for shippers. This enables manufacturers to gain end-to-end visibility across every stage of the product’s journey after it leaves the factory.

It is also in the course of this evolution of online freight that shippers and platforms have begun to forge strong, high-frequency interactions.

According to Fang Keyi, Finance Manager of Qianhe Flavoring & Food Co., Ltd.: “Manbang helps us identify higher‑quality, more experienced, and highly skilled drivers based on our freight‑transport needs. Today, 45% of Qianhe Flavoring’s shipping orders are placed through the Manbang platform.”

Meanwhile, another set of data shows that the number of annual collaborations with online freight enterprises has reached Truck drivers with 20 or more years of experience account for 30% of the total.

Thus, for shippers, online freight platforms have evolved from a mere vehicle‑booking model into a digital and intelligent tool for transforming their supply chains; for the majority of truck drivers, they have become an inclusive platform and vehicle for sourcing loads and forging collaborative partnerships.

Direct engagement with shippers, reshaping the business model.

From the perspective of the industry’s life cycle, at this stage, the development of the online freight‑transportation model has already moved from… The “phase of rapid expansion” has given way to a “phase of high-quality development.”

Based on the aforementioned trend of online freight platforms increasingly penetrating various industries, the DNA of online freight enterprises is becoming more diversified. From… In the “Internet Plus” era, matchmaking‑based business has extended into the freight‑carrying sector at the production and manufacturing end. While network freight enterprises were once built on a platform‑centric DNA, they now need to integrate operational and management capabilities.

By contrast, in the era of the platform economy, a company’s primary strategy was to scale rapidly, with its core competitive advantage often hinging on the size and speed of its financing. As industries transition into a phase of high-quality development, the strategic focus shifts to deepening value—where operational efficiency and a holistic view of the supply chain become the key sources of competitive edge.

The most direct manifestation of this shift in barriers to entry for platforms is corporate profitability.

Taking Manbang, a leading player in online freight transportation, as an example, according to its recently released… In its 2023 financial report, Manbang reported full-year revenue of RMB 8.44 billion, up 25.3% year over year, and non-GAAP net profit of approximately RMB 2.80 billion, a year-over-year increase of 100.4%.

How can we sustainably and effectively scale our profits? Manbang has taken several steps:

1) Translate scale effects into granular, industry-specific services.

On the Manbang platform, there are over With 3 million active drivers fulfilling orders, the platform also boasts over 2 million monthly active users on the shippers’ side. Thanks to frequent user engagement, more than 160 million fulfillment orders were generated in 2023.

As order volumes continue to grow, the tagging of shippers, drivers, and other stakeholders has become increasingly granular, extending down to industry segments, routes, vehicle types, and service levels.

On the one hand, finer granularity helps shippers efficiently identify and assemble a pool of private transport capacity that is professionally tailored and delivers high-quality service; on the other hand, it enables truck drivers to find assignments that align with their skills and preferences, thereby maximizing their earning potential.

2) Direct engagement with shippers streamlines the supply chain and eliminates redundancies.

According to the financial report, in the fourth quarter, the share of fulfillment orders placed directly by shippers on the Manbang platform exceeded… for the first time. 45%, reaching a new all-time high. As the platform’s penetration among high-quality direct shippers and consignors continues to grow, the composition of its shipper base is steadily improving, driving a continuous rise in fulfillment rates.

In the view of Tan Yuanjiang, Senior Vice President of Manbang Group, cost reduction and efficiency enhancement will continue to be the dominant theme driving industry development, and a key value proposition of online freight platforms is to streamline traditional logistics supply chains.

The traditional logistics chain begins at the factory. — Major logistics companies — Small logistics firms — Fleets — Brokers — Drivers. Today, the emergence of online freight‑transport platforms enables those who genuinely need transportation capacity to connect directly with available capacity, significantly streamlining transaction processes and reducing costs. As the industry continues to expand, online freight‑transport is poised to become a crucial tool for driving cost reduction and efficiency gains across the logistics sector.

3) Digital and intelligent transformation, in turn, supports shippers’ production, logistics, and sales.

Today, an increasing number of shippers are routing their orders through digital freight‑transportation platforms. The key reason is that these platforms seamlessly integrate and coordinate resources across transportation, warehousing, last‑mile delivery, and terminal‑yard operations, thereby elevating the digital and intelligent capabilities of supply‑chain execution and management.

Moreover, the digital assets generated through this process of digital and intelligent transformation are helping manufacturing enterprises reduce production costs, enhance supply-chain efficiency, and expand their operational reach.

According to Fang Keyi, with Manbang’s support for Qianhe Flavoring Industry’s supply chain, several key performance indicators are undergoing qualitative changes: first, the number of partner locations; second, the volume of dispatches; and third, the scale of vehicle allocation. These three major metrics are… In 2022, the company posted double-digit growth, and by 2023, its revenue had doubled. As its collaboration with Manbang deepened, Qianhe Flavoring has steadily opened up access to cargo sources and transportation routes, thereby expanding the scope of its overall business development.

Meanwhile, in the process of serving direct‑to‑consumer customers, Manbang is also rapidly scaling up. The scale of the “carriage” business, and explore a second growth curve for profit expansion within it.

Six major development trends to enhance platform value.

Online freight is evolving from simple information matching to order execution and supply chain management.

Today, China’s domestic supply chain stands at a critical inflection point. In the past, as manufacturing capacity expanded, most logistics companies were able to post robust growth, thanks to the tailwinds of the era—simply by allocating assets to meet demand, they could turn a profit.

In the view of industry insiders, today’s supply-chain landscape is characterized by an abundance of assets, yet what’s lacking are integrators, resource‑reconfigurers, and innovators of new business models. We certainly don’t lack logistics resources or market demand; what we do lack is a fresh, transformative business paradigm. By recombining and optimizing these fragmented, vast logistics assets, innovations that reshape production relationships, boost efficiency, and overhaul cost structures will emerge as the next wave of productive forces driving industry evolution.

And online freight transportation is a key lever; the core lies in enhancing the platform’s value.

In Tan Yuanjiang’s view, the future development of online freight transport will be shaped by six major trends:

1) With the development of the economy, online freight transportation will experience rapid growth.

In 2023, the volume of freight orders uploaded on online freight platforms increased by 41% year over year. Amid the overarching trend across industries to reduce costs and boost efficiency, online freight platforms have emerged as an effective tool for shippers to achieve cost savings and operational improvements.

2) Digitalization of regulatory oversight has further enhanced the level of compliance in online freight transportation.

The size of the online freight market has grown from Since its inception in 2016, the market has grown to exceed RMB 500 billion by 2023 and continues to expand at a double-digit annual rate. This underscores that regulatory oversight and standardization are inevitable trends, with a new organizational framework—comprising government, platforms, and small and micro‑enterprises—emerging to drive the industry’s compliance journey.

3) From “no vehicles” to “carrying goods,” penetrating business scenarios.

The transition from a vehicle‑free model to one that assumes the role of carrier is, in essence, a process of building the core competitive barriers of an online freight‑transport platform. On the one hand, the platform is expanding its reach from the ad‑hoc dispatch market into shippers’ scheduled‑carriage segment; on the other, its business model is evolving from simple matchmaking to full‑fledged transaction and even management services, covering the entire end‑to‑end workflow—from shippers’ vehicle‑sourcing needs to fulfillment and payment settlement.

4) Digital–physical integration: data will accumulate as an asset for both enterprises and platforms.

At the heart of how the digital economy empowers the real economy is the shift from experience‑driven to data‑driven business growth. Currently, the Manbang platform has amassed an enormous volume of transaction data. Leveraging algorithmic models, this data can be transformed into capabilities such as demand forecasting, freight‑rate prediction, and financial credit assessment for shippers; meanwhile, for the platform itself, it can serve as… Key reference factors such as AI‑driven dispatch, credit rating, capacity tiering, safety management, and autonomous driving.

5) Deepen engagement with industrial clusters to drive the transformation and upgrading of supply chains.

Across the country, there are thousands of sizable industrial clusters. As the order volume on online freight platforms continues to grow, the commonalities and unique characteristics of these clusters’ supply-chain models become increasingly apparent. The transformation of traditional industry‑cluster supply chains toward shorter links and digital intelligence is emerging as a gold mine in the new era of online freight. Deepening engagement with these industrial clusters will be Manbang’s key strategic priority in its next phase.

6) From platform to ecosystem, we will strengthen the platform’s value.

As the scale of the online freight market and the volume of platform‑issued waybills grow rapidly, shippers, drivers, and the platform are forging a high‑frequency, tightly interconnected relationship built on trust—this is where the platform’s value truly shines. Meanwhile, ongoing efforts to reduce costs and boost efficiency, seamless financial integration, and centralized procurement in the aftermarket all amplify this value, driving the development of the platform’s entire ecosystem.

At present, Manbang’s growth trajectory appears to be driving these trends, and the substantial expansion of its business scale coupled with improved profitability underscores the platform’s value. The development of online freight transportation is now reaching a new turning point.