Author 丨 Zhuohua
Edited by 丨Sibe
Bestway, this hot potato, has finally changed hands.
At the end of October, Best Group issued an open letter to the outside world, transferring all the equity, assets and personnel systems of domestic express-related companies to Jitu Express, and the Group jointly announced its strategic cooperation intention, and finally Bitu Express will acquire best Express business of Best Group China for about 6.8 billion yuan. Best Group has long been rumored to want to sell the express delivery business, and finally settled down by being acquired by Jitu.
1
The hundred lives of "selling children to survive"
As the weakest "one pass" in the "four links and one reach", Bestway has always been a huge burden for PepsiCo. Bestway can be traced back to 2010, when it was first acquired by Best Group as an independent "Best Express" to become "BestWay", and later renamed "Best Express" in 2016. According to the 2020 best group financial report data, in 2020, the group revenue of about 30 billion yuan, of which the express delivery business revenue reached about 19.418 billion yuan, accounting for about 64.7%, it can be said that the express delivery business is the son of best, but this "son" does not seem to be so "filial piety".
Continuous losses have left Bests to make ends meet. Looking at the financial report data of Baishi calendar year, it is not difficult to find that from 2017 to 2020, Baishi's asset-liability ratio has soared from 59.6% to 91.3%, the highest net profit margin is only -0.6%, and the cumulative loss of 3.6 billion yuan in four years, especially in 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, a huge loss of 2.05 billion yuan, and in the first half of this year, the company has lost 1.074 billion yuan, such a big bleeding has made the days when Baishi was not rich even worse. At the same time, the total cash flow in the past 12 months is only 142 million, and Best is simply unable to pay off its debts, and if you don't want to think of a way, the company will even risk bankruptcy. In terms of market capitalization, the Best IPO is the peak, from the initial $4.33 billion all the way down to the current $513 million.
As the "teacher" of the express delivery industry, how did Best Express fall here?
First, if you lose the hearts and minds of the people, you will lose business opportunities. In terms of its life experience, Best Express is really not good - slow delivery, poor attitude of outlet staff, easy damage to express delivery and other problems emerge in an endless stream, and even once made news. In September 2020, the State Post Bureau conducted a survey of express delivery satisfaction, and as expected, Best Express ranked at the bottom, only higher than Shentong and Tiantian.
Second, I picked up sesame seeds and lost watermelons.
As an important member of the "Tongda Department", the main business model of Baishi is to join, whether it is a store, a truck or a warehouse or even a personnel, it is a word - rent. At the same time, Best is also favored by Ali, in June 2017, Best submitted to the sec before the listing of the document shows that Alibaba holds 142 million shares of Best, accounting for 33% of the total share capital of Best, this data is the highest of All Express delivery companies of Ali, it can be said that Best is Ali's "pro-son".
Although the company has been losing money, but with the endorsement of Ali, Best can still go public for financing, so what is the money used for? According to the financial report data, nearly 70% of the net profit of Best is used to invest in technology research and development, which is the core strategy of Best's senior management, to turn Best into an asset-light logistics company, through continuous technology output to solve the problem of low efficiency in the traditional express delivery industry, in order to form a technical advantage in the competition.
The starting point is good, but Baishi looks too far, but ignores the road under the feet how to go, as a logistics company that has direct contact with consumers, Baishi should invest a considerable amount of capital in infrastructure construction and logistics network construction, rather than saving the cost that should not be saved, Baishi has been developing high-speed automatic sorting, automatic package scanning and weighing and other automation and digital technologies, but ironically, in recent years, Baishi violent sorting, express information loss and other technical problems emerge in an endless stream, and developed the best technology. There is no stable basic network, that is, a castle in the air, and at this point, The Hundred Worlds are far away.
Ignoring the business model of consumer experience, coupled with the continuous loss under the influence of the epidemic, so that Baishi continued to bleed, and encountered a "crazy person" who fought a price war like Jitu, under multiple pressures, Baishi was really exhausted, which can be seen from the market share, according to the statistics compiled by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in 2020, the market share of Zhongtong, Yunda, Yuantong and SF was 20.4%, 17%, 15.2% and 9.8% respectively, and Baishi was classified as "other".
At present, Best has sold the burden of the domestic express delivery business that has been losing money for many years and cannot be lost at a very good price, improved the company's financial situation, and set its sights on more refined and diversified business scope such as international logistics and supply chain.
2
Halfway out of the cheng bite gold
Due to years of deep ploughing in the Southeast Asian market, it is not famous in China, and for the head express delivery companies in China, jitu is a halfway out of the cheng biting gold.
Jitu was first founded in Indonesia in 2015, the founder Li Jie is also the Indonesian founder of oppo, relying on the dense network of oppo mobile phones in Indonesia, Jitu quickly built its own logistics system and became one of the head express delivery companies in Southeast Asia. Until March 2020, Jitu Express officially entered the domestic express delivery market, but in just over a year, Jitu already has 80 transfer centers and more than 22,000 outlets in China, with a daily order volume of between 20 million and 22 million, and the scale is quite considerable. However, the domestic express delivery market already has mutual conquest, beating the head of the blood flow of the four links, SF, Jingdong and other companies, strong enemies around, the pole rabbit at this time to enter, in the end with what can tear off the meat from the old predecessors, stand on their heels, but also swallow Bestway?
First, in the way of the other, give back to the other. Burning money subsidies, fighting price wars, the express delivery industry is difficult to cultivate the so-called "user loyalty", so consumers in the express delivery industry are high price-sensitive "opportunists", almost under the service, which one is low in price, which one is favored.
The price war of the express delivery industry is not the first of the pole rabbit, in the early stage of the rise of the tongda system, it is dependent on the price war to lay down the market, and now the pole rabbit is just a reproduction of the means of the teachers, and it is done more thoroughly, there have been reports before, In the early days, the express delivery of the pole rabbit can be 1 to 1.5 yuan lower than the Tongda department, which is half cheaper than the Tongda department, and the person in charge of the pole rabbit also said that he was ready to lose money for two years; at the same time of low-price competition, according to the news of the Securities Daily, the pole rabbit will also secretly go to the network (referring to the use of other companies' express delivery outlets to transport their own goods) to dig people, such behavior undoubtedly touched the bottom line of the industry and became the public enemy of the industry.
In July 2020, Yuantong issued an internal notice prohibiting franchisees from acting as agents of the Jitu business, and since then, Shentong, Yunda and other head courier companies have successively joined the ban on the Jitu; the Jitu side is naturally even more reciprocal, and each single ticket is even less than 1 yuan at one time. Until April this year, the voluntary post office issued a warning letter to intervene, this vicious price war has been reduced, but the result is that the "teachers" can not be blocked, but generally ushered in losses, yuan qi serious injuries, to the Tongda department as an example, check the financial reports, in the third quarter of this year, Yunda's net profit fell by 23.41% year-on-year, Yuantong's net profit fell by 31.16% year-on-year, Shentong's net profit fell by 4671.2%; on the contrary, Jitu can directly eat "One Pass".
Second, to fight more, but also to Ali.
If it is Pinduoduo that helped Jitu win the price war and gain a firm foothold in the Chinese market, then Ali is undoubtedly the power source that Jitu must win to further climb up.
Just like Ali and Jingdong according to the undead Pinduoduo, Ali's rookie and Tongda department also press the undead pole rabbit, because they are all competing at low prices to seize the development strategy of the huge sinking market user traffic, Pinduoduo and Jitu are more suitable, on the one hand, for the needs of competition, Pinduoduo can not all rely on the Tongda system, need to have their own "royal express"; on the other hand, Jitu to gain a firm foothold in the Chinese market, but also need pinduoduo's financial support, the two are highly compatible.
Therefore, it is not difficult to explain why Jitu, a new force that has just entered the market, not only did not suffer much injury in the face of the "encirclement and suppression" of the entire market, but was able to grow rapidly and rely on the price war to beat the old predecessors to disgrace. If the market share of Baishi and Jitu is added up, then the Jitu that has annexed Baishi will occupy more than 14% of the domestic market share, so that Jitu will suddenly become the fourth largest express delivery company in China after Zhongtong, Yunda and Yuantong.
Is Pole Rabbit's ambition limited to this? As mentioned above, Best is the most important company in the express delivery industry, with the continuous tightening of national anti-monopoly supervision, Ali's investment in the express delivery industry is impossible to cover all aspects, so it will not be willing to invest a huge amount of capital in the world, and now Jitu has merged the express delivery business of Best.
On the one hand, Ali lost a sick hundred, but may "harvest" a "healthy and active catfish" pole rabbit, if you can seize the opportunity, Ali will get a strong arm in the express delivery industry; on the other hand, the pole rabbit is based on the low-end market, but it can only be limited to the low-end market, the pole rabbit wants to get rid of the limitation to get a bigger cake, you need a more high-end platform, this point can not be given, but Ali can, under the premise of the logistics network system that Has been perfected by Baishi, If you can win the huge traffic of Taobao, then optimistically estimate that Jitu will even have the potential to impact the boss of the express delivery industry.
3
The "Warring States Era" of the express delivery industry is coming?
After Jitu acquired Bestway, the original pattern of "four links and one reach, SF Jingdong" became a new pattern of "three links and one rabbit, SF Jingdong", and the new "Warring States Seven Heroes" was formed.
Not only the change in quantity, the fundamental reason is that the current entire express delivery industry has also entered a new period of stock competition, mergers and acquisitions like the Internet from incremental competition. It is not unusual for the express delivery industry to fight a price war, but it is quite unusual to beat a company like this time.
In the past, express delivery companies will continue to refine the market and grade, in their respective fields of the cake for the greatest division, but the boundaries of various fields alone rely on enterprises can not be clear, so there will often be enterprises "across the line to grab food" phenomenon, and now the overall market tends to be saturated, the spring and autumn period of land accumulation is completed, it is necessary to enter the Warring States period of resource mergers, this is the choice of the market; not only the market, the government is also exerting force.
In August this year, the Ministry of Commerce, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and other nine departments jointly issued the "Special Action Plan for the High-quality Development of Commercial and Trade Logistics (2021-2025)" to support and encourage qualified commercial and logistics enterprises to optimize the integration of resources, expand business scale, and carry out technological innovation and business model innovation through mergers and acquisitions, listing financing, alliance cooperation and other means. The government is also encouraging the express delivery industry to accelerate the integration of resources, to grab food on the fortunate to grab the end, as soon as possible to determine the winner to draw their own sphere of influence, to avoid vicious competition, although the process will go through a lot of painful periods, but if not, the entire industry will fall into a vicious price war, and only know to stare at their own acres and three points of land grab, and will not put their eyes on the world market.
Finally, although the author compares the domestic express delivery market to the Warring States, in the end it is impossible to have only one "Qin State" to unify the market, market competition is not a zero-sum game, and the competition in the express delivery industry must bring substantial improvements in terms of service forms and scientific and technological levels, which can be regarded as benign competition.