What The Hell America!

A courier firm that conquered Southeast Asia’s logistics industry and scaled globally riding the Chinese e-commerce wave is now grappling with new pressures.

Broken roads, chaotic traffic, nameless alleys, and fragmented island provinces make Southeast Asia a tough terrain for online deliveries – tough enough that even Amazon has struggled to expand there. Yet, a Chinese entrepreneur saw an opportunity in the region, launching J&T Express in Jakarta in 2015. 

Today, the company holds a 28.6% market share in Southeast Asia, generating $10 billion in revenue globally and turning its first profit in 2024. It has since expanded into 13 countries, from China to Latin America and the Middle East, striking deals with regional players like Noon and Salla. Noon is one of the Middle East’s largest e-commerce platforms, while Saudi-based Salla helps merchants run their own online stores with integrated sales and delivery tools. 

“Our growth has been reliant primarily on e-commerce platforms,” Simon Shao, J&T Express’ head of investment and financing, told Rest of World, citing Chinese heavyweights TikTok, Pinduoduo, Temu, and SheiniSheinFounded in China in 2008 and headquartered in Singapore, Shein is a fast fashion brand that grew rapidly through exposure on social media.READ MORE, as well as regional platform ShopeeiShopeeSingapore-based Shopee, a subsidiary of Sea Ltd., is a major e-commerce platform that operates across Southeast Asia.READ MORE.

As profitability sets in, the e-commerce platforms that helped logistics firms like J&T Express succeed are now increasingly competing with them, according to a recent report by Singapore’s DBS Bank and research firm Cube Asia.

In April, Shopee, whose in-house courier SPX has been growing rapidly, dropped J&T Express for most everyday orders in Indonesia. Shao said they saw it coming and the revenue loss from this change is “very limited” because Shopee has been one of J&T’s “smaller customers” in the country.

J&T Express works across three continents with multiple platforms, which gives it a cushion to withstand market shocks — such as Shopee taking a large chunk of logistics in-house, Shao said.

Between 2016 and 2021, Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market grew at an annual rate of 40%, according to McKinsey. That growth is projected to triple by 2030, with the region’s six largest economies — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore — expected to generate $380 billion in e-commerce sales. 

Jet Jie Li, former executive at Chinese smartphone giant Oppo, sensed the coming e-commerce boom in the region a decade ago. At the time, Li ran Oppo’s operations in Indonesia and knew that delivery options were limited in the country. He went on to build J&T Express, tapping into Oppo’s vast retail network and recruiting local partners.

Shao described these partners as the “regional sponsors” — a model in which stakeholders possess local expertise and often equity, managing regional operations and overseeing both independent network partners and directly operated outlets and service stations. “They’re closer to the market,” he said. “A lot of them are local people. They are very familiar with the local know-how … and make decisions much faster.”

That model, Shao said, was critical to J&T’s early success in Indonesia, where it scaled quickly and laid the groundwork for its global expansion. 

The model allows the company to be flexible, adapting to local conditions. As J&T Express expanded to other countries, it built new pickup and delivery outlets and ramped up investment in automated sorting machines to speed up deliveries. 

In Vietnam, where capital expenditure needs were moderate, the company invested in infrastructure while also working with local sponsors. It did the same in Mexico, to better “control operations and improve service quality.” 

The ability to build its own infrastructure sets J&T Express apart in the region. Budiyanto Darmastono, vice chairperson at the Association of Indonesian Express, Post and Logistics Services, told Rest of World that other local players usually don’t take this kind of risk because they lack access to large-scale funding or the financial backing to absorb losses if demand doesn’t materialize quickly. 

“Once the infrastructure is set, then they [logistics firms] need to find customers,” Budiyanto said. “If you set the same price as other competitors, customers won’t find any reason to switch to [J&T].”

J&T Express was accused of predatory pricing by rivals last month, prompting the Indonesian government to consider introducing price-floor regulations. The company pointed to economies of scale, adoption of advanced technology, and management experience as factors reducing the cost per parcel. 

In 2024, Shopee and its Alibaba-owned competitor, Lazada, faced formal antitrust scrutiny from the Indonesian government. Shopee was accused of restricting courier options to its in-house logistics arm, and Lazada of engaging in “discriminatory actions that potentially hinder competition and harm customers.” 

At a formal hearing before Indonesia’s competition regulator, Shopee admitted to the violation and said it would allow third-party couriers back on the platform. J&T Express was reinstated on Shopee but dropped again in 2025, leaving the delivery heavyweight limited to handling larger freight shipments.

“The delivery fee has reached a rock bottom now,” and logistics companies can’t go any lower due to minimal profit margins, Jeff Tan, who leads logistics research in the Asia-Pacific region for Frost & Sullivan, a global advisory firm, told Rest of World. 

According to Tan, Shopee is passing some logistics costs to sellers who want better placement or visibility on its app — like appearing higher in search results or on the homepage.

J&T Express is expanding its services to non-e-commerce platforms and securing direct delivery contracts with global retail brands. The company inked deals with beauty retailer Sephora, footwear brand Clarks, and fashion retailer Zalora in Singapore. In the Philippines, in addition to its existing collaboration with Uniqlo, it formed a strategic partnership with Globe Telecom, the country’s largest mobile communications company. 

The company is also investing in rural areas, using DeepSeek AI in its operations, and testing the use of unmanned vehicles in China. 

But the rollout of autonomous vehicles outside of China “will take time due to the infrastructure and cost,” Shao said.