Southeast Asian retail giant eyes Cainiao

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Wang Xiaojun

The top logistics technology born out of China's "Double Eleven" shopping festival is accelerating its spillover, becoming an important force in the global logistics and warehousing digital transformation and upgrade.

Cainiao, which has identified "globalization" and "technology" as its two major development directions, established an independent logistics technology business department about three to four years ago to accelerate the expansion of external business. Today, Cainiao's logistics technology business has made breakthroughs, continuously winning international contracts, with Southeast Asian retail giant CP AXTRA becoming one of its clients.

Since the pandemic, e-commerce in Southeast Asia has exploded, and retail consumption in supermarkets has also shown an accelerated trend towards online shopping.

As the largest retail company under the Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, CP AXTRA has chosen to prioritize digital transformation and upgrade as an important development strategy, aiming to accelerate the creation of a platform that integrates online and offline development.

However, more than two years ago, CP AXTRA faced many pain points in its transformation. At that time, CP AXTRA's goal was to deliver "fast, accurate, and good" service, but the primary challenge was that speed could not meet standards, so the team searched globally for suitable suppliers to provide system solutions.

This bidding attracted top service providers from around the world. CP AXTRA Group's wholesale business CEO, Xie Yuchen, recalled the decision-making process, admitting that the Thai market was previously accustomed to using software from Europe and the United States, but he believed that "it doesn't matter if it's a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice, it's a good cat," ultimately finalizing the cooperation with Cainiao.

With the support of Cainiao, CP AXTRA's digital capabilities have significantly improved, increasing the proportion of e-commerce business from 3% two years ago to 30%.

This is not only a breakthrough in CP AXTRA's transformation but also a benchmark practice for Chinese logistics technology serving local giants overseas.

For Cainiao, collaborating with a Southeast Asian retail giant like CP AXTRA undoubtedly has important demonstrative significance for its expansion in the Southeast Asian market. At the same time, this also marks that Cainiao's logistics technology business has opened up overseas, becoming a new driving force for its future growth.

Turning CP AXTRA into a "Fast Fish"

CP AXTRA's digital transformation and upgrade is undoubtedly a matter of great concern for the retail market in Thailand and the entire Southeast Asia.

As a retail company with a 36-year history, CP AXTRA owns multiple supermarket brands, including Makro and Lotus’s, operating over 2,700 stores in 10 countries, with annual revenue exceeding $15 billion.

The digital transformation of CP AXTRA is driven by three core factors: the inevitability of digital transformation, the rapid change in customer demands, and the urgency of supply chain upgrades. Xie Yuchen pointed out that previously, retail "only needed to deliver goods from the warehouse to the store," but now, customers demand faster service, and the Thai market may also need to achieve "25-minute delivery" like in China in the future At the same time, Xie Yuchen stated that in the past, it was a case of big fish eating small fish, but now fast fish can eat every fish.

However, due to its large scale, the many countries it covers, and the varying consumption habits in different regions, along with its diverse businesses including B2B, B2C, and O2O, CP AXTRA's digital upgrade faces many challenges.

Wall Street Insights learned that CP AXTRA launched its e-commerce business in December 2022. Initially, it used its own or other third-party systems, but the results were unsatisfactory, leading to a switch to the Cainiao system less than a year later for more efficient operations.

Why choose to cooperate with Cainiao? This is a question that CP AXTRA, which is at a critical transformation period, must consider carefully.

CP AXTRA's Chief Digital Officer Khun Tirayu Songvetkasem told Wall Street Insights that CP AXTRA's online and in-store sales are growing rapidly, and the goal is to deliver quickly, accurately, and with good quality.

After screening, CP AXTRA was ultimately impressed by Cainiao's ability to handle massive orders during China's "Double Eleven" shopping festival and finalized the cooperation after multiple on-site inspections.

In addition, Bu Jiao, the Asia-Pacific Director of Cainiao Logistics Technology, told Wall Street Insights that Cainiao's response speed is also very fast. After receiving the demand from CP AXTRA, they did not bid in the traditional way but sent many experts and engineers to the site to co-create with them, discussing what they wanted rather than simply replicating existing solutions.

"This sincerity and effort were seen by them, and they truly felt our importance to them," Bu Jiao said.

Cainiao's speed did not disappoint this trust. In the first week of cooperation, Cainiao sent a 30-person team to CP AXTRA's Thailand site, and the system was launched in just three months.

It is reported that the iWMS (Picking and Packing System) jointly developed by CP AXTRA and Cainiao significantly improved operational efficiency. After being fully promoted in the Wan Ke Long stores, the picking and packing efficiency increased by 140%.

Moreover, by combining CP AXTRA's fleet of 4,000 vehicles with its Transportation Management System (TMS), the daily order delivery capacity increased from 15,000 orders to 100,000 orders.

Currently, in addition to the already launched iWMS (Picking and Packing System) and TMS (Transportation Management System), both parties are also advancing an AI-based shelf display solution aimed at optimizing in-store product displays and inventory layouts to enhance product visibility and accessibility for customers and pickers.

These digital systems are accelerating the development of CP AXTRA's e-commerce business. Khun Tirayu Songvetkasem expressed hope that through cooperation with Cainiao, they can connect the entire chain from warehouse to store to customer, raising overall efficiency to the next level.

Moreover, this cooperation marks the beginning of a broader partnership between CP AXTRA and Alibaba Group. In the future, CP AXTRA may utilize Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen large model and soon open a self-operated store on Tmall Global, making it easier for domestic consumers to purchase Thai products Logistics Technology Going Global Accelerates

The cooperation between CP AXTRA and Cainiao is a microcosm of Cainiao Logistics Technology's accelerated "going global."

After two years of internal transformation and "convergence and focus," Cainiao has entered the 3.0 stage of development, committed to building a truly global and market-oriented logistics network, covering cross-border logistics, overseas local express delivery, global supply chains, and logistics technology.

After three to four years of efforts, Cainiao's logistics technology business has also opened up and become one of the key investment sectors for Cainiao.

Jin Lingling, General Manager of Cainiao's Strategic Cooperation Department, told Wall Street Insight that a few years ago, Cainiao separated logistics technology as an independent sector to develop third-party business, which has gained a lot of recognition and understanding of market demand and the differentiated advantages of Cainiao's products. Therefore, more investment is now being made in this sector for development.

Cainiao Logistics Technology's products cover intelligent solutions based on four-way vehicles, warehouse operation execution systems, OTWB systems, supply chain control towers, one-code-per-item, RFID express solutions, logistics robots, etc., with several product lines having sales exceeding 100 million.

It is reported that Cainiao Logistics Technology initially focused on domestic expansion but later began to make efforts overseas.

Since the beginning of this year, Cainiao Logistics Technology has accelerated its global expansion while upgrading its organizational structure, dividing it into four major regions: Asia-Pacific (including Southeast Asia), Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East and Africa, and increasing the deployment of personnel overseas and local recruitment to ensure project delivery in overseas markets.

Cainiao Logistics Technology's delivery capabilities are also continuously improving, with over 400 new projects delivered globally in the fiscal year 2025 (ending March 31, 2025). This means that the goal set by Cainiao last year to complete the delivery of 1,000 technology projects globally in three years has already achieved 40% completion in just one year.

Logistics technology has now become a rapidly growing business segment for Cainiao.

Globally, the logistics technology market has maintained double-digit growth over the past five years. Meanwhile, Bi Jianghua, Vice President and General Manager of Cainiao's Logistics Technology Division, revealed that in the fiscal year 2025, Cainiao's logistics technology business continues to maintain dual growth in overseas and domestic markets, with growth rates far exceeding the industry average, including a year-on-year increase of over 150% in overseas sales.

In the process of revenue growth, it is even more significant that Cainiao Logistics Technology has secured several benchmark international contracts, especially in Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

Currently, Cainiao has delivered multiple large-scale automated sorting centers in places like Vietnam and Singapore for customer use, including the largest automated sorting center in southern Vietnam delivered for a national postal express company.

A representative from this Vietnamese national postal express company revealed to Wall Street Insight: "We have been investing in automated sorting since at least 2018. This is the sixth one built with Cainiao's help, but it is our most advanced sorting center, with a more stable system and higher efficiency, capable of handling increasingly frequent e-commerce promotions."

In addition to the express delivery industry, there is even more potential as Cainiao has also secured numerous digital transformation upgrade orders in various vertical industries According to Wall Street News, in overseas markets, not only does CP AXTRA exist, but Cainiao has also delivered a store-based one-code-per-item solution based on RFID technology to a luxury brand; in Toronto, Canada, Cainiao has secured a global leading fast-moving consumer goods brand, providing it with a flexible solution for high-elasticity storage and picking across all scenarios.

At the same time, Cainiao has upgraded its role from a technology partner in the China region to a global partner with multiple leading multinational companies, helping several multinational enterprises accelerate the automation and digital upgrade of warehousing in the global market.

So far, Cainiao's logistics technology products have been implemented in 27 countries and regions worldwide, with over 800 global cooperation projects.

Domestically, Cainiao's logistics technology business has covered multiple industries, including express delivery, automotive, fast-moving consumer goods, and aviation maintenance, enabling Cainiao to better expand overseas.

It is reported that last year, the number of major clients served by Cainiao's logistics technology increased by 61% year-on-year, maintaining a high repurchase rate.

Bi Jianghua believes that from a global perspective, the future of the logistics technology market remains full of imagination. At the same time, influenced by the penetration of AI technology, the digital market in the logistics industry is expected to experience rapid growth in the next five years. Additionally, overseas, China's logistics technology products have advantages in innovation and cost-effectiveness, with significant growth potential.

Moreover, unlike specialized equipment manufacturers, Cainiao's core advantage lies in its dual capability of "operations + research." Cainiao itself has global logistics operations, and the technology products it offers fully consider operational practicality, making them more applicable. In Bi Jianghua's view, this is unique to Cainiao and a significant attraction for clients.

Emerging from Alibaba's e-commerce system, Cainiao has, after 12 years of growth, positioned "international logistics" and "technology" as the two main lines of its current development. In the future, Cainiao aims not only to become a promoter of the global logistics network, serving global merchants and brands, but also to continuously enhance its technological capabilities and export its logistics technology capabilities globally.

Following "Made in China," "Chinese technology," including logistics technology, is beginning to reshape the global digital infrastructure landscape in a more core and fundamental way, and Cainiao has already become an undeniable force in this transformation