Logistics and delivery companies see profits soar as coronavirus boosts e-commerce, demand for medical goods
- Hong Kong’s Kerry Logistics is among firms seeing healthy growth as its freight business benefits from a boom in medical goods deliveries
- Logistics companies face challenges in the post-pandemic era, as many of the businesses they rely on shrink or close down altogether in what promises to be a prolonged global recession
Logistics and delivery companies have been boosted by a surge in demand for medical goods and online shopping amid the coronavirus crisis, with some recording triple digit surges in profit.
But they will have to readapt in the post-pandemic era, as many of the businesses they rely on shrink or close down altogether in what promises to be a prolonged global recession.
Hong Kong-based Kerry Logistics Network, owned by Malaysia’s richest man Robert Kuok, foresees a double-digit percentage gain in earnings for the first half that is likely to extend to the whole of 2020, its chief financial officer Ellis Cheng said in an interview.
“The cross-border cargo freight businesses now are mainly related to Covid-19, for example, masks, protective medical gowns and ventilators,” Cheng said.
He said clients are not too sensitive to the price of the goods or delivery, which has “helped us earn a decent profit.”