How Digitalization Is Revolutionizing China's Logistics Industry

Guest speech transcript (edited by 36Kr)

On December 13, 2021, the WISE2021 China Digital Innovation Summit was held at the Shanghai Pudong Shangri‑La Hotel, focusing on digital transformation in ten key sectors. Zhu Jingxi, Vice President & CTO of Zhongtong Express Group, delivered a talk titled “How Digitalization Reshapes the Logistics Industry Chain,” sharing the company’s experience.

Zhu opened by noting China’s rapid digital‑economy growth, now approaching $5.4 trillion, and the national goal for digital core industries to account for 10% of GDP by 2025. He emphasized that traditional enterprises must fuse technology with business, avoid siloed lab experiments, and adopt a holistic, systematic mindset that considers ROI.

He highlighted that Zhongtong, founded in 2002, has become a leading courier with a 20.8% market share, handling over 1 trillion parcels, and aims for 220 billion parcels annually—equivalent to the United States’ yearly volume.

Key milestones include the 2014 adoption of electronic waybills, which transformed data collection, enabled downstream integration, and powered services such as the “掌中通” app, automated sorting, and enhanced information protection.

Digital tools have shifted the company from manual, experience‑based management to data‑driven decision‑making, fostering a culture centered on users, results, and overall optimization.

Technological advances such as AI‑based smart routing, autonomous sorting, and privacy‑preserving zero‑trust security are being deployed, while pilot projects explore unmanned delivery vehicles and drones for remote or emergency scenarios.

Zhu stressed the importance of open collaboration with leading tech firms to accelerate innovation and the need to protect personal privacy, offering free encrypted privacy waybills for all self‑service orders.

In conclusion, he reiterated that successful digital transformation requires tight integration of technology and business, a global systematic perspective, and careful investment return analysis.