China’s Express Delivery Industry Sees Steady Growth and Balanced Regional Development

China’s express delivery sector maintains stable operational growth amid continuous service upgrading and optimized regional layout, latest industry data released by the State Post Bureau shows. The sector delivers solid expansion in business volume and revenue, alongside notable improvements in service efficiency and more balanced cross-regional development trends.

From January to April this year, the country’s cumulative express delivery business volume reached 64.57 billion parcels, a year-on-year increase of 5.1 percent. The single-month volume for April stood at 16.84 billion parcels, rising 3.2 percent year on year. Corresponding business income maintained steady growth momentum, with the four-month total hitting 497.93 billion yuan, representing a 6.6 percent year-on-year growth. April’s individual business revenue registered 128.91 billion yuan, up 6.3 percent compared with the same period last year.

Service quality and operational efficiency have seen consistent improvement driven by technological innovation and scenario expansion. The industry has accelerated the application of intelligent equipment and cutting-edge technologies, rolling out new service models to enrich delivery scenarios. A multi-modal logistics system integrating cold chain dedicated lines, high-speed rail and air transport has been established to ensure fresh agricultural products reach markets efficiently with full freshness preservation. Intelligent service upgrades also include night delivery via unmanned vehicles and optimized parcel storage and delivery services at airports and railway stations.

Industry supervision data reflects prominent service enhancement. The public satisfaction score for express delivery services is estimated at 84.7 points for April, while the 72-hour on-time delivery rate in key regions reaches 86.3 percent, demonstrating the sector’s advancing standardisation and service capacity.

Regional development gaps continue to narrow, forming a more coordinated industrial pattern. In the first four months, eastern China accounted for 73 percent of national express delivery revenue and 68 percent of total business volume. Central regions took 16 percent of revenue and 21.2 percent of volume, while western regions contributed 11 percent of revenue and 10.8 percent of volume.

Compared with the same period last year, central China lifted its revenue proportion by 0.5 percentage points and volume proportion by 1.8 percentage points. Western regions achieved equal growth of 0.5 percentage points in revenue share and 1.6 percentage points in volume share. The continuous rise of central and western market shares highlights the accelerated expansion of logistics networks in inland areas and the increasingly balanced spatial distribution of the domestic express delivery industry.

Going forward, the sector will further deepen technological and model innovation, optimise cross-regional logistics allocation, and continuously improve service standardisation and intelligence levels to underpin the steady and high-quality development of domestic consumer and logistics markets.