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KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia’s biggest postal company is seeking a more direct role in providing logistics services to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Pos Malaysia is planning talks with Alibaba this month on bypassing the middlemen when shipping goods sold on its platforms, said Mr Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh, its chief executive.

“My focus is still e-commerce, and it is driving the logistics business. When e-commerce is booming, somebody needs to deliver these items,” Mr Mohd Shukrie, 42, said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur on Sept 27.

“Marketplace owners want to deal with logistic players directly. I’m going to China to meet up with Alibaba and other market players in October”, he said.

Pos Malaysia is the top performer this year among 14 global courier stocks with a market value of at least US$500 million, recording a total return of 49 per cent, beating United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp. The company is valued at 25 times its 12-month projected earnings, versus 18 for UPS, the world’s most valuable courier company.

“The future is about cutting the middleman, and the existence of consolidators will be under threat,” he said. “Right now, we deal more with consolidators for parcels from China to the world, but understandably marketplace owners want to deal with logistic players directly.”

Consolidators collect and group outward-bound cross-border mail to specific destinations and negotiate special rates with the public postal operators to distribute the bulk mail in the designated countries. –Full article on TodayOnline