SF Express 2025: Revenue of 300 billion yuan, making profit even harder

Questioning AI · Will SF Express’s price-for-volume strategy be sustainable amid intensifying competition in the express delivery industry?

After the Hong Kong stock market closed on March 30, SF Holding released its full-year 2025 performance report. During the period, revenue reached 308.2 billion yuan, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 11.1 billion yuan, up 9.3% year-on-year. Looking at quarterly data, SF Express showed a trend of increasing revenue but not profit in the second half of 2025. In the first half, the net profit attributable to shareholders grew by 19.37% year-on-year, but in Q3 it turned to an 8.53% decline, and in Q4 the year-on-year growth only rebounded to 9.36%. The company stated that the phased slowdown in profit growth was mainly due to the need for long-term strategic investment in market expansion strategies, which led to a decline in gross profit. SF Express’s gross profit margin in 2025 was 13.07%, down 0.61 percentage points from the same period last year. Long-term strategic investments mainly cover three areas: empowering frontline operations with authorization and incentives; strengthening operational support for high-quality time-sensitive services; and expanding supply chain and international markets. Investment slowed in Q4 last year, with the gross profit margin rebounding to 14.01%, the highest level for the year, slightly easing the trend of increasing revenue but not profit. Regarding revenue by business segment, in 2025, express and large-item logistics segments achieved revenue of 217.6 billion yuan, up 8.69% year-on-year, accounting for 70.58% of total revenue; same-city instant delivery segment achieved revenue of 12.9 billion yuan, up 42.83%, accounting for 4.18%; supply chain and international business achieved revenue of 76.3 billion yuan, up 3.17%, accounting for 26.02%. The overall revenue composition showed no significant change compared to 2024, but the unit price of domestic logistics parcels declined noticeably. In 2025, SF Express’s total parcel volume reached 16.72 billion pieces, an increase of 25.4% year-on-year, far exceeding the growth rate of logistics parcel revenue during the same period. Looking back at SF Express’s parcel volume and revenue per parcel over the past two years, the former has shown a generally month-by-month upward trend, while the latter has moved in the opposite direction. This partly reflects the increasing competition in the express delivery industry, with SF Express maintaining market share through a price-for-volume approach. According to a research report from Guosheng Securities, from 2016 to the first three quarters of 2025, SF Express’s market share in the domestic express delivery industry has remained between 7% and 10%. After reaching its peak around 2023, the market share has declined slightly over the past two years. In terms of expenses, SF Express’s sales and marketing expenses in 2025 were 3.91 billion yuan, up 26.3% year-on-year, mainly due to strengthening the sales team; R&D expenses were 2.17 billion yuan, down 14.36% year-on-year, mainly due to improved R&D efficiency and an increase in capitalizable R&D projects. The express delivery industry is not only about competition; in January this year, SF Express reached a cooperation agreement with J&T Express to strengthen overseas business expansion. The announcement showed that both parties would subscribe for new shares in each other, with an investment amount of 8.3 billion Hong Kong dollars. After the transaction, SF Holding will hold a 10% stake in J&T Express, and J&T Express will hold a 4.29% stake in SF Holding. As of now, SF Holding’s A-share stock price is 36.76 yuan per share, a cumulative decline of 4.07% since the beginning of the year. (Planning: Wang Hanxing, Chart: Li Yuhui)