In the current domestic express delivery industry, netizens have a theory about the classification of express delivery companies: There are two types of express delivery companies in China, one is SF Express and the other is other express delivery companies. SF Express is also the out-and-out "No. 1 express delivery brother" in the domestic express delivery market.
Recently, with the release of SF Express’s 2018 financial report, this courier brother has been discussed again. Among many discussion topics, the topic of comparison between SF Express and ZTO is very popular, and even more Netizens expressed their opinion that ZTO is threatening SF Express's position as "the number one express delivery brother". So, how did such a view come about, and are its conclusions tenable?
By comparing the financial reports of ZTO and SF Express, it is not difficult to find the source of speculation among netizens: In the 2018 financial report, ZTO Express achieved an adjusted net profit of 4.201 billion yuan, and SF Holdings achieved a net profit attributable to its parent company Profit was 4.556 billion yuan. Although the difference in net profit between the two companies is only 355 million yuan, SF Express's profit margin dropped by 4.57%, while ZTO Express's profit increased by as much as 30.1%.
Through comparison, it is not difficult to find the progress of ZTO Express in one year in 2018. You must know that in 2017, ZTO Express’s net profit lagged behind SF Express by a full 1.61 billion yuan, and it was only one year behind SF Express. Within a year, this gap narrowed to 355 million. However, net profit and profit margin data alone are not enough to support the conclusion that "ZTO is threatening SF Express's position as the 'number one express delivery brother'". After all, ZTO's full-year revenue in 2018 was only 17.604 billion yuan. , while SF Express reached 90.943 billion yuan. The revenue of the two companies is obviously not of the same order of magnitude.
On the one hand, the balance between ZTO Express’s price and profit comes from ZTO’s unique cost control plan. Taking transportation costs, one of the largest cost expenditures, as an example, in 2018, Zhongtong has been purchasing high-capacity dump trailers to increase the proportion of self-operated vehicles. As of the end of 2018, among Zhongtong’s 5,500 long-distance freight trucks, The proportion of vehicles is as high as 81.8%, and Zhongtong's single-ticket transportation cost has also been reduced from 0.77 yuan in 2017 to 0.68 yuan. This alone has reduced Zhongtong's cost expenditure by 937 million yuan.
On the other hand, ZTO maintains a good service quality while maintaining a low-price strategy. Different from SF Express's full direct operation model, ZTO operates in a direct operation + franchise mode. In the 2018 Express Service Satisfaction Survey commissioned by a third party commissioned by the State Post Bureau, ZTO's performance in acceptance, collection, delivery, after-sales and information The satisfaction rankings of the five major aspects of service are second only to SF Express and JD.com.
In general, ZTO Express’s progress in 2018 is indeed very obvious, but it is not appropriate to compare it with SF Express only through its net profit. But it is undeniable that in the future express delivery market, the competition between Tongda and SF Express will become more intense.