Currently, cross-border e-commerce, as an important engine for my country’s foreign trade growth, has driven the rapid development of manufacturing, logistics and warehousing and related trade industries, showing strong vitality.
Judging from the 2024 semi-annual financial report, the cross-border e-commerce track has welcomed more participants, competition has intensified, and platform regulatory rules have become increasingly strict.
The performance of companies with cross-border e-commerce as their core or key business has shown a trend of differentiation. Many leading companies have experienced growth in performance, but a few companies have faced the challenge of declining net profits.
Some experts said that the overall performance of the cross-border e-commerce industry is improving, demonstrating the resilience and innovation capabilities of enterprises in a complex international environment.
Differences in performance between companies may be affected by many factors. First, different market positionings cause companies to be affected by international situations to varying degrees. Second, differences in innovation and adaptability affect companies’ ability to seize market opportunities.
According to statistics, in the first half of this year, 9 of the 14 listed cross-border e-commerce companies, including Anker Innovation, AV Times, Sanzhou Holdings, and Zhiou Technology, achieved year-on-year growth in operating income, and 11 companies achieved year-on-year growth in net profit attributable to their parent companies.
Among them, Anker Innovation ranked first with revenue of 9.648 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), followed by Huading Shares and AV Times.
In terms of growth rate, Pansco International’s revenue grew the fastest in the first half of the year, with a year-on-year increase of approximately 111.89%, mainly due to the growth in revenue from end-to-end cross-border distribution services, freight forwarding services and other logistics services.
However, there are also five companies that have experienced varying degrees of revenue decline. Among them, Lanting Jishi and Cross-border Tong have the most significant declines, both falling by more than 15% year-on-year.
In terms of net profit attributable to its parent company, Anker Innovation leads the pack.
In the first half of this year, the total net profit attributable to the parent company of 14 listed cross-border e-commerce companies was 1.56 billion yuan, while Anker Innovation’s net profit attributable to the parent company was as high as 872 million yuan.
The performance of Anker Innovation can be attributed to the deepening of market expansion, continued product innovation, diversification and optimization of sales channels, consolidation of product line advantages, improvement of cost control and operational efficiency, as well as the continuous enhancement of brand influence and consumer trust.
In addition, although Zhiou Technology’s revenue in the first half of the year increased by 40.74% year-on-year to 3.72 billion yuan, its net profit attributable to the parent company fell by 7.73% year-on-year to 172 million yuan.
In this regard, the company stated that in order to increase market share, it adopted a strategy of reducing the average unit price of product sales, and the average selling price of products decreased compared with the same period last year.
In order to promote new products, the company increased its investment in marketing expenses, and the proportion of advertising expenses in revenue increased by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year to 4.0%.
Some people believe that the traditional model of cross-border e-commerce has come to an end. Under the refined model, quality and branding have become the trend.
Statistics from the General Administration of Customs show that in the first half of 2024, China’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 1.22 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.5%; 4.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of my country’s foreign trade in the same period.
According to industry insiders, the cross-border e-commerce market is showing a global growth trend, and there will still be new breakthroughs in volume in the future.
Facing this vast market, Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies are exploring new operating models. Among them, the ‘semi-managed’ model, as an innovative model between ‘full managed’ and ‘self-operated’, is gradually becoming the industry’s ‘new favorite’.
Since the beginning of 2024, cross-border e-commerce giants such as AliExpress, Alibaba International Station, Temu and SHEIN have successively announced the launch or increase of the “semi-managed” model. This emerging model is accelerating penetration and reshaping the cross-border e-commerce ecosystem.
Saiwei Times stated that the Temu platform opened a ‘semi-managed’ platform in mid-March. The company actively accessed and leveraged its supply chain advantages, benefited from the platform’s development dividends, and achieved good sales performance and growth in the first half of this year.
Zhiou Technology also stated in its financial report that while the company continues to increase its market share on the Amazon platform, it continues to expand traffic opportunities on emerging platforms such as Temu and SHEIN.
After Temu opened its “semi-managed” platform, the company became one of the first batch of “semi-managed” sellers to open its website in the United States. It relied on its self-operated overseas pallets, last-mile fulfillment capabilities, and product competitiveness to seize the initial traffic dividend of the platform, providing a solid foundation for the development of European sites in the second half of the year.
Huakai Yibai’s financial report shows that during the reporting period, the platform continued to help many industry sellers and cross-industry sellers develop global business through the “semi-managed” service model.
Survey data from AMZ123, a cross-border seller navigation website, shows that as of June 2024, about 40% of sellers have begun to deploy the “semi-managed” business, while 18% of sellers are considering layout.
Some experts said that it is foreseeable that in the future, “full hosting” and “semi-hosting” in parallel may become the mainstream trend of cross-border e-commerce platforms.
Enterprises should establish their own differentiated competitive advantages through brand building, localized operations, and improved logistics delivery service experience, and continue to pay attention to technological innovation, business model, and operating model innovation.
To summarize the development characteristics of cross-border e-commerce in the first half of the year, resilience, innovation and policy adjustment are undoubtedly the three key words.
Looking forward to the future, the cross-border e-commerce industry will continue to deepen technological innovation and market diversification strategies, and strengthen localized operation strategies to better adapt to changes in the international environment and market demand.
