To expand their current e-commerce business collaboration, Chinese express delivery and logistics provider SF Group and Singapore-based aviation services company SATS have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The expertise and service offerings of SATS and SF Group will be combined, as will those of their affiliated businesses, such as Worldwide Flight Services (WFS), SATS’ ground handling company, and SF Airlines, SF Group’s Chinese cargo carrier.
In order to optimize e-commerce logistics procedures and eventually develop a business model for future e-commerce logistics gateways at international airports, Saudia Cargo, WFS, and Cainiao Group initiated a strategic relationship in March at Liege Airport.
The partners will now first consider extending their current hub operations’ cooperation to additional global hubs, including the e-commerce handling at Liege and the hub operations in Singapore. These include investigating Proof of Concepts (PoCs) for e-commerce processing in Beijing and at New York’s JFK International Airport, as well as the hub operations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The partners also intend to use the vast demand channels of SF Group, the fourth-largest integrated logistic provider in the world at the moment with headquarters in China, to find and develop more network solutions or specialized services from the more than 200 sites where SATS is located.
At the SF Group headquarters in Shenzhen, Bob Chi, chief executive of SATS’s gateway services Asia-Pacific, and Zhang Ji, vice president of SF Group, formally signed the partnership agreement between the industry heavyweights.
In accordance with this agreement, Chi will also co-chair the Steering Committee, which is in charge of working groups at the national or regional level that carry out the strategic projects.
“SF Group has selected SATS as a partner to find new opportunities for network expansion and service enhancements worldwide, and we are honored by this decision,” Chi added. “As we embrace our collaboration and go beyond the traditional customer-vendor relationship, our organizations can learn a lot from one another.”
Through this cooperative relationship, each party is able to capitalize on the strengths of the other in order to enhance the supply chain and add value for our respective stakeholders. We are sure that we can build on our current successes and develop into a multi-station worldwide network collaboration.
Ji stated: “SF Group is actively promoting its foreign growth plan as the largest integrated logistics service provider in China and the fourth largest in the world. The partnership with SATS Group, one of the biggest aviation ground service providers in the world, will increase both parties’ competitiveness and create a win-win situation as it continues to expand its global network in the sector of aviation logistics.
The ongoing growth of the worldwide eCommerce market, which is expected to reach USD 7.9 trillion by 2027 after growing by 8.8% in 2024 to USD 6.3 trillion, would augment growth potential for the collaboration between SATS and SF Group.
