China's : Case for Urban Logistics

Article published on bloomberg.com on December 22, 2016 and written by Lulu Yilun Chen :

Case for Urban Logistics: China's Uber for Trucks raised $115 million for expansion and fetches $1 billion valuation

Trucking remains by far the primary means of ferrying goods across China. More than 80 percent of goods are delivered via roads in a country whose logistics sector was worth $1.6 trillion in 2013, Deloitte has estimated. But the industry remains fragmented and inefficient.

Huochebang competes against 200 rival applications trying to minimize the amount of time that cargo-haulers stand empty, a rate that currently hovers around 40 percent, according to Industrial Securities Co.

Truck Alliance Inc., an Uber-type service for trucks known in China as Huochebang, raised about $115 million in a financing round that valued the startup at $1 billion.

Based in the southwestern province of Guizhou, Huochebang -- which means “truck gangs” -- wants to match the country’s 20 million trucks with commodities in need of transport, vacant parking lots and service centers it operates. That’s essential because more than 90 percent of the nation’s road haulers are owned by individuals, according to the Industrial Securities report.

Unlike Uber, which takes a cut from every ride, Huochebang makes money primarily from selling toll cards, taking a cut from the card top-ups, and helping truckers with financing.

Urban Logistics are precisely the topic of the upcoming Genie Workshop, on May 22nd ! For more information : Genie Workshop (in French) 

Read the whole article here