Dialogue with Xiaoniu Senior Vice President Xiong Wei: The Strategy of Xiaoniu 3.0 Era

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Wang Xiaojuan

Global cross-border e-commerce is surging, and the logistics service providers "underwater" are important "guardians" in this global e-commerce competition. After two years of organizational transformation and strategic focus, Cainiao is actively releasing its latest strategic thinking, aiming to leverage the booming development of cross-border e-commerce to achieve a key leap in the global logistics market competition.

On August 5th, at a media exchange event hosted by Cainiao, Xiong Wei, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cross-Border Logistics at Cainiao, told Wall Street Insight that since the second half of last year, Cainiao has further focused and made breakthroughs in its business towards the two major directions of "globalization" and "technology," in line with its own development needs and Alibaba Group's overall strategic arrangements.

At the same time, marketization is also the main theme of Cainiao's future development. Against this backdrop, earlier this year, Cainiao transferred customized logistics solutions closely tied to Alibaba's e-commerce platform businesses to Taotian, AliExpress, and other e-commerce "front desks," focusing on providing underlying logistics network services and accelerating marketization.

During the exchange, Xiong Wei also elaborated on the three development stages of Cainiao over the past 12 years and pointed out that since 2023, Cainiao has entered its 3.0 era, emphasizing globalization, technology, and marketization even more.

Based on this positioning, while Cainiao acquires external customers in a more market-oriented manner, Alibaba's e-commerce platform can also choose logistics service providers more freely and flexibly.

Xiong Wei expressed that Cainiao is very pleased to embrace such changes. This allows Cainiao to move more firmly in the direction of globalization and marketization, and to achieve growth in comparison with peers in the market.

In recent years, Cainiao has accelerated globalization, with global business accounting for more than half of its overall operations; at the same time, external business from third parties has significantly exceeded that from Alibaba Group.

Clearly, after 12 years of growth, Cainiao, which was incubated from Alibaba's e-commerce system, has already "spread its wings" and is no longer just ensuring the logistics operation of Alibaba's e-commerce but is focusing on "international" and "technology," building a globalized and market-oriented logistics network.

Xiong Wei pointed out that for Cainiao, globalization has been a very clear and firm direction for many years. Before the pandemic, Cainiao was one of the earliest companies in the industry to invest in building a global cross-border logistics network. Although the external environment is changing faster and faster, the demand for underlying global logistics networks is actually increasing.

"As our business direction becomes clearer, many external merchants and platforms that were previously skeptical have shown enthusiasm and openness beyond our expectations in the past few quarters. Now, almost all well-known Chinese export platforms and overseas platforms have some level of cooperation with us."

International logistics has also become a strong growth driver for Cainiao.

Alibaba Group's financial report shows that for the fiscal year 2025 (ending March 31, 2025), Cainiao Group's revenue was 101.272 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2%, mainly driven by the revenue growth of cross-border logistics fulfillment solutions, partially offset by a decline in domestic logistics service revenue due to its e-commerce business taking on some logistics platform responsibilities In terms of the global business landscape, Cainiao currently has over 40 overseas warehouses and a cross-border network covering more than 200 countries and regions, and it operates localized express delivery services in nine countries and regions.

Based on the e-commerce-related logistics supply chain it has established, Cainiao hopes to continuously deepen its leading position in the global e-commerce logistics supply chain field.

This is one of Cainiao's clear long-term development goals. According to Xiong Wei, Cainiao's confidence lies in the fact that, compared to many Chinese peers, Cainiao has the earliest, most determined, and widest global layout; and compared to traditional international logistics companies overseas, Cainiao has advantages in e-commerce-related genes and technology applications.

From the perspective of the customers served, Xiong Wei revealed that about two-thirds of Cainiao's global business is related to the e-commerce industry. "This is our advantage; many e-commerce platforms or overseas brands meet the needs of overseas consumers through online methods, and the explosive growth is very strong."

The vigorous development of overseas e-commerce will become an important support for Cainiao's global expansion.

In Xiong Wei's view, Cainiao and traditional international logistics companies overseas are actually competing in two different sub-markets, while Cainiao has clearly defined its main breakthrough point as global e-commerce-related express logistics services. In this market, customer demands are similar to those of Chinese express delivery, requiring stable timeliness, convenience, low costs, and flexibility.

"This field is undoubtedly the fastest-growing in the entire logistics industry and has the largest long-term potential market." At the same time, Xiong Wei believes that networks that meet e-commerce-related demands are actually very important next-generation logistics infrastructure.

In the process of establishing this next-generation infrastructure, Cainiao will focus on deepening its core markets.

In addition, the global foreign trade market is changing rapidly. In the face of the impact of increased tariffs by the United States and the cancellation of tax exemptions for small packages on cross-border e-commerce, Cainiao will help merchants navigate through these challenges.

Xiong Wei told Wall Street Insight that such policies will be more favorable for overseas warehouses and local overseas businesses. The cross-border direct shipping model has a lower threshold, allowing more merchants to participate; therefore, the scale of cross-border direct shipping business will not decrease. However, due to the impact of tariffs from different countries, the threshold for cross-border direct shipping will be raised, and merchants may choose different cross-border direct mail products or expand to more countries.

Based on this, Cainiao is also enhancing the efficiency of the entire cross-border logistics network and launching faster and lower-cost products to meet the diverse needs of merchants.

In summary, after further focusing its business at the beginning of this year, Cainiao's development in globalization and marketization continues to accelerate. With increased investment in overseas networks and efforts to strengthen the global network, Cainiao is getting closer to realizing its vision of "72-hour global delivery."