Cainiao Builds Largest Unmanned Warehouse in Southeast Asia

Recently, Alibaba-backed Chinese logistics company Cainiao has built the largest automated warehousing system in Southeast Asia for Flash Express, a leading logistics and express company based in Thailand. The warehouse is helping establish the logistics company to quickly establish their competitiveness in the field of logistics and warehousing.

At the beginning of 2021, Flash Express began to look for partners for an automation transformation in China. As one of the largest express delivery companies in Thailand and with a focus in the Southeast Asian market, Flash Express has more than 2,000 network nodes in China, completing more than 2 million orders every day. The company spoke about its work, saying, “Many customers hope that in addition to providing express delivery services, we can also help them solve warehousing problems.”

In April 2021, Cainiao’s automation solution won the bid for the contract. A Flash Express spokesperson commented on the decision, “In terms of the balance of the whole plan, we think Cainiao’s plan is the best.”

For the warehouse project, Cainiao applied flexible automation technology in the planning and design of the building. As a result, the warehouse’s capacity can be adjusted according to the needs of future business development. At present, the average daily output of the warehouse is about 6,000 orders while the daily processing capacity will be increased to about 20,000 orders during peak seasons.

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According to a report by Logics IQ, the compound annual growth rate of the global warehouse automation market will reach 11.7% from 2019 to 2025, and the global warehouse automation market will reach $27 billion in 2025. In Thailand’s logistics industry, which has an extremely low degree of automation, this is undoubtedly a huge step above others in the market..

Thailand has nearly 70 million consumers and a per capita GDP of more than $7,000, making it a key market for e-commerce in Southeast Asia. E-commerce platforms represented by Lazada and Shopee have developed rapidly, while e-commerce platforms supported by Facebook and TikTok’s have also demonstrated fast growth.

In the past eight years, along with its own globalization efforts, Cainiao logistics technology has landed contracts for eHubs, overseas warehouses, distribution centers and terminal distribution networks in Europe, America, Southeast Asia and Russia.