J&T Express 2025 Financial Report: Frugal and Cost-Conscious Domestically, Accelerating Overseas Gold Mining

Ask AI · How does J&T Express support rapid overseas growth through cost reductions in China?

21st Century Business Herald reporter Liu Jingxi

Recently, J&T Express (01519.HK) released its 2025 annual report. The report shows that in 2025, J&T Express’s total global parcel volume surpassed 30 billion, up 22.2% year over year; full-year total revenue reached $12.16 billion, up 18.5%; annual profit was $225 million, up 98.2% year over year; adjusted net profit was $425 million, up 112.3% year over year.

Image source: the company’s annual report

Looking more closely, there are two trends worth noting in J&T Express’s 2025 annual report: further reductions in cost per parcel in the China market, and high-level growth recorded in the international market.

In fiscal year 2025, J&T Express’s cost per parcel decreased 6.7% year over year to $0.28; in the Southeast Asia region, revenue was $4.5 billion, up about 40%. The parcel volume in new markets grew 43.6% year over year to 404 million items, and revenue grew 51.2% year over year to $870 million. Between one drop and one rise, it can be seen that the company’s business focus is shifting.

Not only J&T Express—in fact, China’s logistics leaders in 2025 have followed a development path that is highly similar. The domestic market has shifted from a price war to lean cost reductions, while the international market has entered a globalization sprint stage characterized by high investment and high growth.

In 2025, J&T Express’s parcel volume in China was 22.07 billion, up 11.4% from 2024; for the full year, it achieved revenue of $6.71 billion, up 5%.

Behind the slowdown in growth is that J&T Express has made some cuts to its network in China.

J&T Express’s Q4 2025 report shows that in the fourth quarter, the company reduced the number of network partners by 300, reduced the number of outlets by 500, reduced the number of transfer centers by 2, and reduced the number of vehicles operated by third-party carriers by 300.

In response, J&T Express explained in its annual report that the reduction in the number of network partners and outlets in China is mainly due to the company optimizing its network structure in China and improving the operational capability of each network partner and each outlet. The reduction in the number of third-party carrier line-haul vehicles in China is mainly because the company invested more in its own vehicles and increased the use of vehicles with higher transport capacity.

At the same time, J&T Express is further transforming its business focus toward “more intensive and refined operations.”

On the one hand, J&T Express achieves “full-chain” cost reductions across three key stages: transportation, sorting, and last-mile management. Taking the Yunnan market as an example, a relevant executive from J&T Express previously said that in 2025, J&T Express invested more than RMB 60 million to upgrade the Kunming transfer center. Over the past year, the average delivery time for parcels sent by J&T Express in Yunnan to across the country improved by 2 to 3 hours; the cost per-parcel logistics dropped significantly. After sending 120 million parcels of agricultural and specialty products, J&T Express cumulatively saved more than RMB 24 million in logistics costs.

On the other hand, the scale effects brought by the broad overseas markets further help spread costs. In 2025, J&T Express’s cost per parcel in the Southeast Asia market fell from $0.57 to $0.48, a year-over-year decrease of 15.8%, and it is the main driver behind the global cost-per-parcel decline.

Total per-parcel express delivery costs then fell significantly as well. In 2025, J&T Express’s cost per parcel decreased 6.7% year over year to $0.28.

Compared with other logistics companies, this is a solid performance. In the same period, SF Holding and ZTO Express both saw increases in their cost per parcel to varying degrees. According to their annual reports, SF Holding’s cost per parcel in the same period was about RMB 12.74, up 3.2% year over year; ZTO Express’s cost per parcel in the same period was about RMB 0.94, up 6.8% year over year.

Image source: 21st Century Business Herald

From a market perspective, logistics companies’ growth room in overseas markets is clearly more imagination-inspiring.

For fiscal year 2025, J&T Express’s revenue in China was $6.7 billion, up about 5%; in the Southeast Asia region, revenue was $4.5 billion, up 39.8%; and in new markets, revenue was $870 million, up 51.3%, achieving full-year profitability for the first time.

Among them, the Southeast Asia market remains J&T Express’s “growth engine.” In 2025, J&T Express handled 30.13 billion parcels in total, and the number of parcels handled in Southeast Asia reached 7.66 billion, up 67.8% year over year, setting the highest growth rate in four years. Benefiting from this, J&T Express’s market share in Southeast Asia increased from 28.6% in 2024 to 34.4% in 2025.

For the first time, new markets (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Mexico, Brazil, and Egypt) achieved full-year adjusted EBIT profitability, reaching $3.777 million. Full-year parcel volume in new markets grew 43.6% year over year to 404 million items.

In fact, “mining overseas” is a direction the entire industry is working toward. For fiscal year 2025, the year-over-year revenue growth rates in overseas markets for three logistics companies—SF, J&T Express, and ZTO—were all far higher than those in their domestic markets, recording high-level growth.

Behind this is that in 2025, especially after entering the second half of the year, China’s domestic express delivery parcel volume hit a ceiling.

According to the 2025 industry operating data released by the State Post Bureau, total nationwide express delivery parcel volume for the year was 198.95 billion items, up 13.6% year over year. Overall, the industry maintained growth, but the growth rate showed a clear pattern of “strong early and weak later”: from January to September, the cumulative year-over-year growth rate of nationwide express parcel volume was 17.2%, and the growth trend remained steady. After entering the fourth quarter, the traditional peak season, the industry’s growth rate fell significantly, and growth momentum weakened noticeably. In October, the year-over-year growth rate was 7.9%, the first time during the year it returned to single digits. In November, the growth rate further declined to 5.0%. In December, the pace continued to slow to 2.3%. In the months of the fourth quarter, growth rates were significantly lower than the average level of the first half, dragging down the industry’s overall full-year growth rate.

And with the explosion of e-commerce in Southeast Asia, China’s logistics giants have brought mature domestic models and launched a “dimensionality-reducing” attack on the logistics market in Southeast Asia.

According to data from Frost & Sullivan, in 2025 Southeast Asia’s e-commerce retail transaction value reached $303.85 billion, up 27.5% year over year; in the same period, Southeast Asia’s express parcel volume reached 20.7 billion items, up 32% year over year. This is comparable to the rapid growth stage in China’s logistics industry between 2015 and 2017.

At the same time, the profit space in the Southeast Asia market is also higher than in the China market. For example, according to J&T Express’s 2025 annual report, Southeast Asia’s adjusted EBIT was $538 million, with an EBIT margin of 11.9%; China’s domestic market’s adjusted EBIT was $94 million, with an EBIT margin of only 1.4%. The profit margin in Southeast Asia is 8.5 times that of China, making it the core engine of profits.

With fast growth and large profit space, the Southeast Asia market has therefore become a “must-win battleground” for China’s logistics companies.

According to Frost & Sullivan’s estimates, in 2025 the combined market share of Chinese logistics companies in the Southeast Asia express delivery market exceeded 45%. Among them, J&T Express ranked first with 34.4%, followed by ZTO, SF, Cainiao, and others.

Cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the domestic market, and getting ahead of the curve in the overseas market—these are the narratives that the capital market appreciates.

Benefiting from earnings that exceeded expectations, on the day the earnings report was released on March 31, J&T Express (01519.HK) saw a notable rebound in its share price. On that day, it closed at HK$10.11 per share, up HK$1.03 from the previous trading day, with a single-day gain of 11.34%. As of the close of trading on April 3, J&T Express (01519.HK) maintained an upward trend, closing at HK$10.29 per share, up HK$0.19 that day, a gain of 1.88%.