Chinese app Manbang handled US$100 billion worth of goods a year by matching shippers with truckers
- Manbang app has 6.7 million trucker users and handled about 700 billion yuan (US$101 billion) worth of goods a year
- Many truckers used to hang out for-hire signs and wait for days to get business to haul goods
It can sometimes take two days or more to get business so Zheng Xiaopan found some shade, parked his truck and made himself comfortable for the wait. A for-hire sign was his principal way of advertising his services to haul goods around China’s southeastern Guangdong province.
“There’s no knowing when my truck can be filled up,” said 26-year-old Zheng, a high-school dropout who took up one of the world’s most dangerous occupations to help pay for his sisters’ college tuition. “Not knowing how long I had to keep waiting was just as tiresome as driving.”
Then in 2016, a friend introduced Zheng to an app that matches truckers and shippers and there was no turning back. Using the app by Manbang Group, Zheng managed to cut the time that his truck remained empty by 87 per cent, increasing his overall income.
For the estimated eight million truckers in China, the advent of freight-booking apps has revolutionised the way business is done in one of the backbone trades keeping the world’s second-largest economy running.
For all of its importance to the economy, long-haul trucking in China is fragmented and inefficient, with 95 per cent of rig-drivers either self-employed or working for a small firm, according to a report by McKinsey & Co. Only one per cent of trucking companies employed more than 50 staff.