From January to February, 2022, the total social logistics in China was 51.8 trillion yuan, up by 7.2% year-on-year, calculated at comparable prices. The growth rate of total social logistics continued the upward trend since the fourth quarter of last year, and was significantly higher than the level in 2019 before the epidemic, indicating that the overall logistics demand was still on the upward trend, and the logistics operation started smoothly.
From the structural point of view, the effect of expanding domestic demand to promote consumption policy continues to appear, and the demand for industrial and consumer logistics maintains rapid growth; Externally, the global economic cycle has not returned to normal level, and the demand for imported logistics has continued to fall.
The demand for industrial logistics grew rapidly, and new kinetic energy continued to increase.
After the holiday, enterprises resumed work in an orderly manner, and the demand for industrial logistics maintained rapid growth. From January to February, the total logistics volume of industrial products increased by 7.5% year-on-year, 1.4 percentage points faster than the average growth rate in 2020-2021.
From the structural point of view, new kinetic energy continues to exert its strength, and its support for industrial logistics demand is enhanced. High-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing continued to grow rapidly. In January and February, the total logistics volume of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing increased by 14.4% and 9.6% respectively, and the growth rate was 2.3 and 3.4 percentage points higher than that of December last year.
From the perspective of industry, computer communication and other electronic equipment manufacturing, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing and instrument manufacturing all achieved double-digit growth, and the growth rate was accelerated. In addition, the automobile manufacturing industry grew by 7.2% year-on-year, 4.4 percentage points faster than that in December of last year, especially the output of new energy vehicles increased by 150.5% year-on-year, and continued to grow at a high speed on the basis of doubling the previous year.
Demand recovery of people's livelihood consumption logistics accelerates the continuous development of new formats.
In January and February, driven by online promotion factors such as "Online New Year Festival", the logistics demand for consumer goods manufacturing at the production end accelerated, and the logistics demand for e-commerce online shopping at the sales end continued unabated. From the production side, the consumer goods manufacturing industry has accelerated its recovery. In January and February, the logistics demand of consumer goods manufacturing industry increased by 9.7% year-on-year, which was 5.2 percentage points faster than the average growth rate in 2020-2021.
From the sales point of view, the role of new formats is still obvious. In January and February, the total logistics volume of units and residents' goods increased by 10.5% year-on-year; Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods increased by 12.3% year-on-year, and the e-commerce logistics index showed that the e-commerce logistics business volume increased by more than 25% year-on-year in the first two months, and the rural business volume increased by nearly 25%, maintaining a rapid growth trend.
The import price increased and the logistics demand continued to fall.
Since the fourth quarter of last year, international commodity prices have continued to rise, which has had a certain impact on China's related imports. The data shows that in January and February, the volume of imported logistics decreased by 3.5% year-on-year, falling for five consecutive months. However, we should also see that the decline of import logistics volume has narrowed since the beginning of this year, and with the gradual recovery of China's economy and supply chain in the future, the import scale will also expand.
From the perspective of import structure, the import volume of crude oil, coal, lignite and steel decreased due to factors such as sharp price increase, with cumulative year-on-year decreases of 4.9%, 14.0% and 7.9% respectively. The import demand of meat in agricultural products maintained a downward trend, down 33% year-on-year.
Scale expansion of logistics market and accelerated integration of industries.
The scale of logistics market continues to expand, and industry integration is accelerated. Since 2021, the market scale of logistics industry has continued to expand, and the growth rate of total revenue of logistics industry has also maintained a relatively high level. In January and February, the total revenue of the logistics industry was 1.6 trillion yuan, up 9.7% year-on-year, faster than the level in 2019 before the epidemic.
With the development of new kinetic energy, the logistics demand structure is constantly changing, which puts forward higher requirements for logistics services, especially since the epidemic, the transformation and upgrading of the logistics industry has been significantly accelerated, and the logistics market has entered an accelerated integration period. The income proportion of the top 50 logistics enterprises in China has risen to the level of * * * in recent years, and the overall industrial concentration has steadily increased. Subdivision areas such as express delivery leading enterprises have further promoted the industrial concentration through mergers and acquisitions. According to the data of * * * Post Office, the brand concentration index CR8 of express delivery and parcel service in January and February was 85.3, which was greatly improved compared with the whole year and the same period in 2021.
The transportation business grew rapidly, and the logistics enterprises operated more efficiently. In terms of physical volume, the freight volume of the whole society increased by 15.5% in February, of which the road freight volume increased by 21.1%. From the perspective of corporate business, the total business volume index rose instead of falling in February, and the index rose by 0.1 percentage point from the previous month to 51.2%. Since February, driven by factors such as the resumption of work and production, the physical volume and business volume of the logistics industry have maintained a good growth trend, while the logistics industry has maintained a relatively efficient operation efficiency. In February, the capital turnover index and equipment utilization index in the logistics boom index both rose by 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, and remained above 50% for six consecutive months, reflecting that enterprises actively improved the efficiency of capital use and the operational efficiency of logistics equipment, which played a certain role in regulating the tight balance between supply and demand of personnel in the first two months of the year.
On the whole, the macro-economy continued to recover in the first two months of this year, and the growth rate of logistics demand scale maintained a good level. From the perspective of market demand and expectation, the new order index and business activity expectation index in the logistics industry prosperity index are 50.2% and 59.7% respectively, which are higher than last month, and the business activity expectation index has been running in a high prosperity range for two consecutive months, indicating that logistics enterprises are expecting better development of the industry.
However, we should also see that since March, unstable and uncertain factors have increased, and it has become more difficult for the logistics industry to ensure the stability of the industrial chain and supply chain.
From the external environment, the epidemic situation in some areas is still continuing, and the development level of various industries and regions is uneven. At the same time, geopolitical conflicts are still continuing, which may lead to poor cross-border logistics channels in Europe, tight transportation capacity, rising freight rates, and supply chain shocks, which will increase the pressure on key commodities to maintain supply and stabilize prices. It needs to be tracked and analyzed and paid close attention to.
From the perspective of market vitality, the operating costs of logistics enterprises are rising, and the pressure of rising raw materials and labor costs is increasing. The foundation for the overall recovery of the industry needs to be further stabilized:
First, the linkage between logistics service price and cost is weak. Although the cost of raw materials such as oil prices continues to rise, the price of logistics services has not increased significantly. In February, the service price index in the logistics boom index dropped by 0.2 percentage points instead of rising, and the freight rates of road logistics and coastal bulk cargo dropped month-on-month, indicating that the bargaining power of the industry is low and the linkage between cost and logistics service price is lagging behind.
Second, the profitability of the industry is further under pressure. The key survey data show that the logistics business cost of key logistics enterprises increased by 17.3% year-on-year in January and February, and the cost per 100 yuan of operating income was 90.7 yuan, up by 1% year-on-year, which was significantly higher than the average level of industrial enterprises above designated size. Among them, under the influence of factors such as rising commodity prices and structural shortage of labor, fuel costs and labor costs have risen by more than double digits respectively. From the perspective of profitability, the loss of key logistics enterprises in January and February was nearly 30%, up 2.5 percentage points year-on-year, indicating that the operating pressure of logistics enterprises has increased, leading to further compression of profit space. The overall income profit rate is around 3%, down 0.2 percentage points from the same period of last year. Among them, the damage of small and medium-sized micro-logistics enterprises is more obvious, and the profit rate of small and micro-logistics enterprises is less than 3%, which is lower than the same period of last year, and there is a big gap with large and medium-sized enterprises.