Workers monitor the transfer of parcels through intelligent sorting devices to the corresponding compartments in each village at a logistics center in Xiaogan, Central China's Hubei Province, on October 11, 2023. Photo: IC

Chinese logistics companies are firing on all cylinders amid the ongoing Double 11 sales festival, the world's largest shopping carnival.

China Railway Express Co, the express delivery arm of China State Railway Group Co, rolled out an express delivery service that guarantees a parcel can be transported between major Chinese cities and delivered door-to-door in just four hours.

During a 20-day period that started on Wednesday, a total of 1,350 bullet trains with cargo loading capacity will be used to carry e-commerce goods, according to a press release the company sent to the Global Times.

JD.com, an e-commerce giant in China, said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Thursday that an automation upgrade at a distribution center in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province has improved efficiency for the distribution of courier parcels to five times of that of manual labor.

Continued investment in technology, digitalization and smart technology has ensured the fast growth of the Chinese express delivery business, according to industry insiders.

On October 23, the delivery volume for China's courier sector exceeded 100 billion parcels, 39 days earlier than in 2022, according to the State Post Bureau.

"Improving industry-wide infrastructure and the promotion of digitalization, automation and unmanned technology has greatly reduced costs, improved efficiency and made management easier for China's express delivery companies, effectively underpinning their role as the world's most cost-effective logistics sector," Xu Yong, an official with the China Communications and Transportation Association, told the Global Times on Thursday.

High technology has greatly eased the work burden of employees at distribution centers, and automation has reduced the rate of errors during the sorting process by an average of 10 times compared with manual labor, Xu revealed.

Alibaba's Cainiao Smart Logistics said it will stage the world's first livestreaming broadcast on cross-border cargo flows on Thursday evening.

The company's top cross-border logistics park, automated air cargo center and intelligent sorting assembly line will all appear in a non-stop 48-hour broadcast, satisfying viewers' curiosity on the route that a parcel takes when going abroad.

Cainiao said that it will operate more than 210 international cargo flights each week during the Double 11 sales. 

In 2022, China's smart logistics market totaled 700 billion yuan ($95.64 billion), with an annual growth rate of 13.1 percent for the past five years, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday.

In terms of road transportation, Chinese courier firm ZTO Express on Tuesday added 10 heavy-duty autonomous driving trucks to its fleet.

These trucks, to run on routes in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, will promote the commercialization of autonomous driving in express delivery scenarios, the company said.