JD.com announced a joint venture between its Jindong Logistics subsidiary and OOCL Logistics and COSCO Marine Logistics, which are subsidiaries of the China Ocean Shipping Company, or COSCO Shipping Group.
The partnership represents a meeting of two logistics giants. Shanghai-based COSCO Shipping Group is a Chinese state-owned enterprise and the world’s largest integrated shipping company, with a total fleet of 1,274 vessels, and investments in 56 shipping terminals worldwide. Jingdong Logistics meanwhile has built one of China’s most expansive domestic logistics networks, covering 100% of the country’s administrative districts and counties.
It also builds on an already existing partnership between Jingdong and COSCO. The two companies’ cooperation goes back to 2015 when JD.com opened an office in Hong Kong and partnered with COSCO Logistics to import international goods into China, with the latter providing JD.com with warehousing, customs clearance and shipping services from Hong Kong to Mainland China.
The joint venture will leverage COSCO Shipping Group’s global expertise in supply chain services with Jingdong’s technology chops to build a global logistics network and supply chain service platform. These services will span cross-border air and maritime logistic, and financial, data, and other features.
Last year, Jingdong Logistics’ parent company JD.com pinpointed Southeast Asia as an attractive region for international expansion, after partnering with Google and Walmart to support a push into the US and Europe. And more recently, in March, JD.com launched a store on Alphabet’s online shopping site Google Express.