Robot on the line

At a busy parcel sorting center in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, a humanoid robot works alongside human colleagues on a sorting line, repeatedly picking up packages and feeding them into the system. On a large screen overlooking the floor, its output is displayed directly against performance figures for human workers.

It does not tire, but for now, it remains slower and far more expensive than an experienced human operator.

Eight of these humanoid units have undergone trial runs at the center since March, capable of feeding as many as 1,200 parcels an hour into the sorting system, said He Yong, deputy director of China Post's Jianggao mail processing center.

Yet while eye-catching, the machines represent a technology still in its rough experimental phase — a high-tech snapshot of the transformation unfolding across China's logistics landscape.

By 2030, annual express delivery volume is expected to reach 270 billion items, according to the country's postal industry development plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period.

After decades of explosive, volume-driven growth powered by the expansion of e-commerce, China's express delivery sector has reached a structural turning point. Volume is no longer the metric that matters most.

Handling over 100 billion parcels in the first half of the year alone, logistics giants can no longer survive simply by adding handling capacity, and so have shifted their focus to operational efficiency and unit-cost reduction.

Companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles and digital management systems to improve the efficiency and resilience of one of the world's largest logistics networks.