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Cainiao hopes to increase transit times from China to its burgeoning customer base in the Middle East through a new service with Saudia Cargo.
The Middle East is one of the top five international markets in Alibaba’s parent logistics network and is growing by 20% annually, according to Cainiao.
But transit times, according to a tracking website, for deliveries from Cainiao to Saudi Arabia are over 24 days – a far cry from the 72 hours promised by Alibaba in 2015.
But this new service, which sees Saudia Cargo flying a cargo ship between Hong Kong, Riyadh and Liège five times a week, is expected to cut transit times by more than half, to just 10 days.
Cainiao said the partnership would help form an “air bridge” connecting Asia, Europe and the Middle East to meet the growing demand for e-commerce, which in the Middle East focuses on electronic products, clothing and household products.
It appears that Cainiao is looking for a low annual rate from its logistics providers: Last month, Cainiao launched a shipping reservation service for air and sea transport, covering 200 hubs and said its cross-border port-to-port charges would be 30% to 40% lower than the average market rate. A spokesperson said The Loadstar the lower rate was achievable by working “closely with our logistics partners… to adopt an annual pricing”.
He explained: “This will allow us to guarantee the most advantageous delivery costs for our customers in order to avoid price fluctuations. This business model allows us to offer shipping cost 30-40% lower than the current market rate and will be a standard / regular business model for us. “
Cainiao recently announced that its sales in the fourth quarter – including December – increased 51% to 1.74 billion euros, “mainly due to the increase in the volume of orders fulfilled by our operations of fast growing cross-border and international retail, ”says.
It rolled out more than 20 international freight flights in December for AliExpress, slashing average delivery times by 3.5 days, Cainiao said.
He added that he continued to expand his network with deeper integration with logistics partners. In December, it launched an open tender for its logistics services in 2021 in key markets: it is not known whether Saudia Cargo participated in this process.
Saudia Cargo said the deal with Cainiao helped solidify Saudi Arabia’s goal of becoming a “modern global logistics hub”.
William Xiong, Chief Strategist of Cainiao and Managing Director of Export Logistics, said, “Partnering with Saudia Cargo is essential to expand our global logistics network to improve export efficiency. With the launch of new flights, merchants and customers in China, Saudi Arabia and Europe will benefit from a better logistics experience. “
Saudia has a fleet of four 777s and three 747-400 freighters.
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