In the past year, the general feeling is that business is not doing well, and the sense of anxiety is stronger. In 2023, the bulk logistics market is sluggish, and the logistics industry seems to usher in a more challenging cycle.
Now, with the 2023 annual reports of listed companies in various segments of the logistics industry being announced, today, through the data, let's take a look at the real situation of these companies in this year: which companies have achieved contrarian growth, and which companies have encountered a cold current in the market, which is beneficial to the slope.
In 2023, SF Express achieved operating income of RMB258.4 billion, down 3.39% year-on-year due to the impact of international business, net profit attributable to the parent company of RMB8.23 billion, up 33.4% year-on-year, and business volume of 11.97 billion votes, up 7.5% year-on-year.
JD Logistics' total revenue in 2023 will reach 166.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.3%. As for net profit, JD Logistics continued its previous profit trend, with adjusted non-IFRS net profit reaching 2.76 billion yuan, an increase of 218.8% year-on-year, and the unadjusted net profit for the whole year turned losses into profits.
Affected by factors such as weak global trade demand and year-on-year decline in sea and air freight rates, Sinotrans's revenue in 2023 will be 101.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.94%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 4.22 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.5%, achieving contrarian growth and continuous improvement in profitability. Among them, the profit of the professional logistics business segment was 1.061 billion yuan, an increase of 15.22%, the profit of the agency and related business segment was 2.308 billion yuan, an increase of 13.37%, and the profit of the e-commerce business segment was 199 million yuan, an increase of 12.41%.
On the whole, as China's largest freight forwarding company, its shipping agency, air freight forwarding, railway agency and other related businesses, business volume and scale advantages are huge, with the collaboration with cross-border e-commerce business and its own service quality capabilities, it is expected to bring a greater increase to the overall business volume. In addition, in the field of professional logistics, Sinotrans's contract logistics, project logistics, Huagong logistics, and cold chain logistics sub-sectors have the best share in the country, and the potential is huge.
Express: "Price war" throughout the year, Zhongtong net profit of 8.7 billion yuan
In 2023, ZTO's revenue increased by 8.6% year-on-year to RMB38.419 billion, net profit attributable to the parent company increased by 28.5% year-on-year to RMB8.749 billion, and adjusted net profit increased by 32.3% year-on-year to RMB9.0 billion.
Source: ZTO Express 2023 performance report
As for the increase in performance, Zhongtong attributed it to "the scale advantage, continuous capacity improvement and stable sales and management cost structure jointly offset the negative impact of the price decline." "In 2023, Zhongtong's annual parcel volume increased by 23.8% year-on-year to 30.2 billion pieces, and its market share expanded by 0.8 percentage points to 22.9%, but due to the impact of the industry's price war, the revenue per ticket fell by 11.3%.
From the perspective of the entire express competition pattern, CR7 (SF, Zhongtong, Yuantong, Yunda, Shentong, China Post, J&T) will have a business volume of more than 10 billion pieces in 2023, and these seven express delivery companies will form the first express delivery group.
Express/bulky: Debang has the highest net profit, and the net profit margin of the industry's leading enterprises continues to increase
In the past two years, the trend of the express industry has changed very obviously, and the leading players have bid farewell to the radical play of "scale is king" and exchanged price for quantity, turned to service competition and industrialization extension, and proposed to achieve the growth goal of quality and profit. At present, Debang, SF Express, and Aneng have achieved profitability, and the gross profit of Best Express has also turned from negative to positive.
For the full year of 2023, Debang's revenue will be 36.279 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.57%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 746 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.32%. Aneng's revenue reached 9.917 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%, and its net profit changed from a loss of 400 million yuan in the same period of 2022 to a profit of 407 million yuan. The revenue of SF's express segment reached RMB33.08 billion, an increase of 18.5% year-on-year, and its net profit margin continued to improve.
Hazardous chemicals logistics: Milkyway continues to lead
As one of the segments with the highest threshold in the industry, hazardous chemicals logistics has five leading companies, including Milkyway (leading hazardous chemicals logistics), Hongchuan Wisdom (leading private petrochemical warehousing), Yongtaiyun (leading cross-border chemical logistics enterprise), Xingtong Co., Ltd. (domestic liquid chemical shipping leader), Shenghang Co., Ltd. (domestic liquid chemical shipping leader), the overall concentration is low, and the industry pattern is relatively scattered.
According to the "2023 China Chemical Logistics Industry Development Report", the scale of the mainland hazardous chemicals logistics market in 2023 will be about 2.38 trillion yuan, and the total transportation volume will remain at about 1.8 billion tons, which is basically the same as in 2022. In terms of modes of transport, road transport accounts for more than 60 per cent, while the total volume of railway transport has remained at about 160 million tons in recent years, and the total volume of water transport has remained at about 400 million tons.
In 2023, Milkyway will still maintain a leading position in profits, but due to factors such as intensified competition in the chemical logistics market and weakening demand, its revenue and net profit have declined. In 2023, the operating revenue will be 9.753 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.75%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 431 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 28.72%.
Air cargo: the overall decline in performance, industrial upgrading and "going to sea" bring new opportunities
Similar to the maritime market, the overall performance of the air cargo market in 2023 will be average due to weakening demand, recovery of supply, decline in freight rates, and the impact of a high performance base in the same period last year.
At present, Air China Cargo, China Eastern Airlines Logistics, and China Southern Airlines Logistics are the major market participants in the continental air logistics market. In 2023, China Southern Airlines Logistics will achieve revenue of 16.61 billion yuan, down 22.9% year-on-year, net profit of 2.429 billion yuan, down 47.81% year-on-year, and revenue of China Eastern Airlines Logistics will be 20.621 billion yuan, down 12.14% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to the parent company will be 2.488 billion yuan, down 31.58% year-on-year.
Air China Cargo's performance was also not ideal. In the first half of 2023, Air China Cargo's revenue was 6.054 billion yuan, down 55.30% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 473 million yuan, down 77.43% year-on-year.
Air cargo focuses on the transportation of high value-added goods, and its demand is strongly related to the economy. With the vigorous development of domestic high-end manufacturing, cross-border e-commerce and other industries, it is expected to bring more demand to the air cargo market.
Bulk logistics: The net profit of the big four fell together
Different from the continuous record high growth trend of revenue and net profit attributable to the parent company in previous years, the net profit attributable to the parent company of the four giants in the bulk logistics field will decline in 2023.
Since the bulk supply chain involves metal minerals (black, non-ferrous metals, etc.), energy and chemical industries (coal, petrochemicals, etc.), agricultural products, etc., which are the upstream of various industrial industry chains, changes in the external environment will have a great impact on the bulk commodity market and bulk supply chain. Since last year, affected by factors such as the decline in the prices of major commodities, downstream customer demand and profitability have been under greater pressure, resulting in a further reduction in the gross profit margin of bulk supply chain enterprises with low gross profit margins.
Among them, the largest decline was in Xiamen International Trade, followed by Xiamen Xiangyu, which decreased by 46.72% and 40.31% respectively. The best performer on the profit side was C&D Co., Ltd., whose supply chain operation business segment achieved revenue of 593.366 billion yuan, down 14.79% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to the parent company was 3.953 billion yuan, down 1.38% year-on-year.