The policies related to less than truckload logistics in China have undergone a transformation from encouraging enterprises to establish logistics distribution networks in urban and rural areas to intelligent logistics and the transformation of logistics distribution facilities. From 2019 to 2021, the Chinese government has been committed to improving the end service capacity of less than truckload logistics. Since 2022, the Chinese government has supported the empowerment of intelligent distribution facilities for less than truckload logistics.
——Interpretation of the Development Goals of Less than truckload Logistics Related Industries at the National Level
In May 2022, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "14th Five Year Plan for the Development of Modern Logistics", which pointed out that by 2025, China will build a modern logistics system that is supply and demand compatible, internally and externally connected, safe and efficient, and smart and green.
The overall development plan of the current logistics system, including less than truckload logistics, is as follows:China's less than truckload logistics is divided into full network type, regional type, and dedicated line type. Among them, the dedicated line type can efficiently load and compress the cost of the main line, which has a strong advantage in the main line, but the short haul cost is high and the terminal distribution capacity is weak. Due to its multi-level distribution mode, the end-to-end advantage of the full network model is more obvious, but it has therefore increased the cost of the trunk line. Regional less than truckload logistics mainly gathers the provincial layout network, but compared to full network less than truckload logistics, the visualization demand needs to be improved.
In terms of the operation of less than truckload logistics enterprises, China's overall less than truckload logistics industry is currently facing shortcomings such as severe service homogenization, insufficient information technology level, and high operating cost pressure, which urgently need to be improved.
According to the IT Orange Database, overall, the investment and financing volume of China's less than truckload logistics industry has shown a trend of continuous increase followed by a sharp decrease, reaching a peak of 3 cases in 2022 and 1 case in 2023.
From the perspective of investment and financing scale, the investment amount in the less than truckload logistics industry has reached a historical peak of 12.12 billion yuan since 2021. In 2022, the investment amount in the less than truckload logistics industry was 855 million yuan. The investment amount in the less than truckload logistics industry in 2023 is 500 million yuan.
Overall, the competition in China's less than truckload logistics industry is fierce, with iconic events such as mergers and acquisitions constantly emerging, and midstream enterprises expanding their scale through horizontal acquisitions. In the future, the number of new market entrants will continue to decline, and the concentration of market share will continue to gather. In terms of investment and financing, digitalization and new technologies are becoming important investment and financing directions in the less than truckload logistics industry.