The truth behind J&T Express teaming up with SF Express has been revealed.

Ask AI · Why did J&T Express accelerate cooperation with SF Express after becoming profitable overseas?

In mid-January this year, the logistics industry witnessed a highly watched moment: as China’s express delivery sector entered a stock consolidation phase due to slowing growth, SF Holding, a long-established logistics service provider dominating the mid-to-high-end market, and J&T Express, which focuses on e-commerce parcels, jointly announced a cross-shareholding agreement with a total investment transaction value of HK$8.3 billion.

This move—seen by the market as a highly complementary “huddle to keep warm”—was further confirmed as necessary in J&T Express’s latest financial report.

On March 30, J&T Express released its 2025 full-year results. Last year, in its largest single market, China, J&T processed 22.07 billion parcels, up 11.4% year over year; however, its market share fell from 11.3% in 2024 to 11.1%. At the same time, the adjusted EBIT contributed by the China market declined from $150 million in 2024 to $93.855 million.

Evidently, in China’s “anti-over-competition” game in the stock market, J&T Express urgently needs to shift from a “price war” to a “value war.”

As J&T Express’s Chief Financial Officer, Zheng Shiqiang, revealed, in China, J&T continued to optimize operations last year, reducing costs. Its cost per parcel hit a historic low of $0.28.

Cooperating with SF Express will undoubtedly help J&T further optimize costs in the domestic market.

However, the growth room that the domestic market can provide to J&T Express is now very limited; even more attractive opportunities lie in the vast global market.

What has particularly delighted investors is that after nearly three years of operations in new markets such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico, J&T Express achieved, for the first time, adjusted EBIT turnaround to profitability, recording $3.777 million.

Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia—its home base—J&T achieved the “three-win harvest” of incremental growth, gaining market share, and improving profits. Adjusted EBIT increased 77.5% year over year to $540 million.

Benefiting from growth in overseas markets, J&T Express’s total revenue last year reached $12.16 billion, up 18.5% year over year. Adjusted net profit was $430 million, up 112.3% year over year, exceeding Bloomberg’s consensus expectations. Total parcel volume first surpassed the 30 billion mark, reaching 30.13 billion parcels, up 22.2% year over year.

However, this global expansion has undoubtedly been costly.

To support a massive cross-border parcel volume network, J&T Express has continued to invest in heavy-asset infrastructure worldwide. By the end of 2025, J&T Express’s express delivery business covered 13 countries, with about 19,300 outlets and 246 transfer centers in operation, as well as more than 13,300 line-haul vehicles.

It is precisely these capacity investments with huge costs that have enabled close cooperation with global cross-border e-commerce platforms such as SHEIN, Temu, TikTok, and AliExpress, and have also led to a partnership with Mercado Libre, the largest e-commerce platform in Latin America.

J&T Express management revealed that it is studying potential opportunities in other regions such as other countries in Latin America, Europe, and North America.

But to capture market opportunities as global e-commerce penetration rises rapidly, J&T Express must further increase the density of its global express delivery network.

In its financial report, J&T Express mentioned that the strategic cross-shareholding between the company and SF Express promotes deeper cooperation between the two. By integrating both sides’ overseas and cross-industry logistics resources and terminal network resources, they can enhance global network coverage capability and service efficiency, which is beneficial for the company’s expansion in overseas regional markets.

With the historical crossing of the profitability inflection point in new markets, combined with deep linkage with SF Express at the underlying resource level, J&T Express has not only deepened its moat in per-parcel economic returns, but also opened up broad growth space for a transition from a “regional express delivery dark horse” to a “global integrated logistics giant.”

In this battle for the global supply chain, Chinese companies have already fully entered the stage. And what J&T Express has in hand is no longer just a blade for a price war, but rather long-term leverage based on global network and capital synergy.