Profit doubles, going overseas and landing! J&T Express 2025 annual report breakdown: from "follower" to "global player"

Ask AI · How does J&T Express’s cost optimization flywheel drive global expansion?

“Cost optimization—price reduction—business growth—further cost decrease” positive flywheel.

Author | Guantao

Editor | Xiaobai

On March 30th, J&T Express (01519.HK) officially announced its full-year 2025 performance: total revenue of $12.16B, up 18.5% year-over-year, with an adjusted net profit of $430 million (about 3 billion RMB), a surge of 112.3% year-over-year. The profit growth rate not only far exceeds domestic peers but also stands out in the global express delivery industry!

In 2025, J&T’s global parcel volume first exceeded 30 billion pieces, reaching 30.13 billion, a year-over-year increase of 22.2%. Daily parcel volume was 82.5 million, up 22.6%, marking the birth of a global logistics operator capable of handling over 80 million parcels daily.

So, in 2025, when the industry as a whole bids farewell to price wars and shifts toward value competition, why can J&T achieve both volume and profit growth? Where does its “J&T speed” come from?

From Southeast Asian dominance to global player: J&T’s growth logic in 2025

Let’s first find the answer in the data.

Currently, J&T’s express delivery business covers 13 countries including China, categorized into three major regions: China, Southeast Asia, and new markets.

The domestic market contributes the largest current business volume for J&T. In 2025, parcel handling reached 22.07 billion, an 11.4% increase year-over-year, with revenue up 5%. This aligns with the overall performance of the domestic express industry last year as reported by the State Post Bureau.

(Source: Choice Data, Chart: MarketCap Wind APP)

Objectively speaking, after nearly twenty years of rapid development, the domestic express market has entered a stage of high-quality growth, expected to grow in tandem with consumer spending.

In 2025, J&T’s domestic business ranked fifth, still positioning itself as a “follower” in competition; meanwhile, it views the domestic market as a “talent and model export base” supporting global expansion. Through learning, exchanges, and healthy competition with domestic peers, it aims to build the domestic market into a technological high ground.

Southeast Asia, as J&T’s main base, has become the core driver of its 2025 performance growth.

In 2025, J&T’s revenue in Southeast Asia reached $4.5B, a 40.0% increase; adjusted EBIT was $538 million, up 77.5%; and the adjusted EBIT margin reached 11.9%, an increase of 2.5 percentage points year-over-year.

Market share-wise, J&T’s share in Southeast Asia rose from 28.6% in 2024 to 34.4% in 2025, maintaining the top position in the Southeast Asian express industry for six consecutive years. The total parcel volume in Southeast Asia also hit 7.66 billion, a 67.8% increase, achieving comprehensive improvements in volume, quality, and efficiency.

New markets such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Mexico, Brazil, and Egypt are the most noteworthy parts of J&T’s 2025 financial report.

In 2025, J&T’s revenue in new markets reached $870 million, a 51.1% increase; adjusted EBIT turned profitable for the first time, reaching $37.77 million. This indicates that J&T’s new market business has officially entered the “profit inflection point” phase, potentially becoming the company’s third growth curve.

Stable growth and high-quality development domestically, incremental growth, share expansion, and profit improvement in Southeast Asia, and the new markets entering profitability—this is the logic behind J&T’s 2025 performance. Overseas markets have already become a new engine for J&T’s growth.

High gross margin and high growth: Blue ocean opportunities in emerging markets

Unlike the domestic express market, which has entered a saturation competition stage, both Southeast Asia and new markets harbor greater growth potential.

First, Southeast Asia. In 2025, the nominal GDP of Southeast Asia reached $4.1 trillion, a 4.9% increase, maintaining high prosperity. From 2026 to 2030, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nominal GDP is projected to reach 6.7%.

With a population of 700 million, a median age of 30.9 years, urbanization rate of 52.8%, and ongoing labor dividend releases, Southeast Asia is in a historic window of optimal demographic structure, strong consumption potential, and rapid urbanization.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the social retail total in Southeast Asia in 2025 was $1.2 trillion, up 14%. Additionally, the proportion of the population under 15 years old is 23.3%, with a young demographic structure naturally aligning with online shopping and social e-commerce consumption habits.

Brazil and Mexico, as Latin America’s two largest markets, saw e-commerce retail transaction totals of $60.93 billion and $58.63 billion respectively in 2025, with year-over-year growth of 15.2% and 25.9%.

More importantly, e-commerce penetration rates in these markets remain relatively low—Brazil at 22.5% and Mexico at 19.1%, far below China’s 46.8%.

Benefiting from economic development and diversification strategies, the Middle East’s e-commerce and express industries are also accelerating.

In 2025, e-commerce retail sales in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt reached $42.37 billion, up 28.7% from 2024’s 25.3%; parcel volume reached 990 million, up 20.8% from 2024’s 17.9%; average parcels per person increased from 5.4 to 6.3, showing clear growth momentum.

Furthermore, the high economic levels in the UAE and Saudi Arabia lay a solid foundation for rapid development of e-commerce and express services.

By the end of 2025, J&T operates 44 transfer centers, 300 trunk line vehicles, and numerous branch vehicles in these new markets, with about 2,000 outlets.

An important financial detail also worth noting: whether in Southeast Asia or emerging markets, gross margins are significantly higher than in China. For example, in Southeast Asia, the gross margin in 2025 reached 19.66%, nearly three times that of the domestic market.

(Source: Choice Data, Chart: MarketCap Wind APP)

This means that as the potential of Southeast Asia and new markets continues to be unleashed, J&T’s future performance growth elasticity will be even more considerable.

And the supporting force behind this growth potential is not only the structural dividends of regional markets but also the global e-commerce ecosystem, especially the deep restructuring of logistics demand driven by the social e-commerce wave.

Mastering social e-commerce dividends and capturing new global express delivery volume

As a new business model integrating content creation, social interaction, and instant transactions, social e-commerce is reshaping the global retail landscape at an unprecedented speed.

Frost & Sullivan’s data shows that in 2025, social e-commerce retail transactions reached $151.73 billion, a 39.1% increase; in 2024, the growth rate was 33.2%, with two consecutive years of rapid growth.

With the rapid rise of social e-commerce worldwide, the logistics industry is also ushering in new structured growth opportunities.

The unique operational mode of social e-commerce—centered on short videos and live streaming sales, emphasizing instant satisfaction and impulse buying—poses unprecedented demands on logistics services.

Another core feature of social e-commerce logistics is high sensitivity to costs. Since free shipping models transfer fulfillment costs to platforms, logistics providers with scale effects and cost advantages are presented with structural opportunities.

In 2025, social e-commerce transactions in Southeast Asia reached $151.73 billion, up 39.1%, accounting for 49.9% of total e-commerce transactions, nearly half. Through deep strategic cooperation with TikTok Shop, J&T has become its most important logistics partner in Southeast Asia.

A survey by Singapore venture capital and tech consulting firm Momentum Works shows that in Q4 2025, J&T’s daily parcel delivery volume reached 26.5 million, a 73.6% increase, mainly driven by TikTok Shop-related delivery activities.

J&T has established deep collaborative relationships with leading e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, Pinduoduo, Taobao Tmall, SHEIN, Mercado Libre, Temu, and social e-commerce and live streaming platforms like TikTok, Kwai, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu.

Among these, close cooperation with global cross-border e-commerce platforms like SHEIN, Temu, TikTok, and AliExpress has been a key driver of J&T’s impressive performance in Southeast Asia and emerging markets.

In 2025, J&T partnered with Latin America’s largest e-commerce platform Mercado Libre and received its “Best Transporter of the Year” award, a recognition of its service capabilities.

As an independent third-party logistics provider, J&T Express has no conflicts of interest with platform partners, enabling it to provide equal quality logistics services to all e-commerce platforms. This means that, while ensuring service quality, cost control becomes its most core competitive advantage.

Domestically, J&T has reduced its per-ticket cost to a historic low of $0.28, building a strong cost moat.

In Southeast Asia, scale effects have driven per-ticket costs down to $0.48, enabling more competitive pricing for customers and boosting adjusted EBIT margins to 11.9%, achieving a win-win situation.

As J&T stated in its earnings announcement, leveraging cost advantages, the company has built a “cost optimization—price reduction—business growth—further cost reduction” positive flywheel, mutually benefiting e-commerce platforms and achieving dual leadership in cost and market share.

In recent years, Chinese courier companies’ “going abroad” stories have often been seen as capital stories; but J&T’s 2025 financial report truly brings this story to fruition.

China is J&T’s “training ground,” where extreme operational efficiency and cost control capabilities have been developed and systematically exported to Southeast Asia, then replicated in emerging markets.

In 2025, J&T proved that the competitiveness of Chinese express delivery has shifted from domestic “price wars” to a globally unique supply chain moat that is hard to copy.

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