Under the agreement, TNT’s Shanghai-based subsidiary TNT Hoau will provide road delivery for Tencent’s ecommerce customers including sudi.qq.com and shop.qq.com.

TNT said the deal represented a step further in TNT Hoau’s expansion in the Chinese ecommerce logistics market following key business-to-business deals with the likes of Alibaba.com and Youshang.com.

The company said China’s ecommerce market has grown to RMB 5.88 trillion in 2011, accounting for an eighth of the country’s GDP, with “brisk” growth expected in ecommerce transactions leading to growing demand for logistics services.

Andrew Yang, managing director of TNT Hoau, said: “Customers of ecommerce operators have an increasing need for highly efficient and quality road delivery services with nationwide network coverage.

“We are glad to see a growing number of ecommerce operators making TNT Hoau their major road delivery service partner. We are encouraged by the positive feedback we have received on the quality of our Day-Definite service from the customers of ecommerce platforms,” Yang added.

Hong Kong-based Tencent was founded in 1998 and floated on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2004.

The company made RMB 20.2bn in revenue ($189.8m USD) in the first half of 2012, a growth of 54% on the same period last year, with ecommerce transactions bringing in RMB 1.6bn ($254.6m) in the half.

TNT Hoau provides day-definite road delivery services to 334 large and medium-sized cities in China, through a network of 1,300 depots.

TNT acquired Hoau Group, then one of China’s largest road transport companies, back in 2007 to link China into its Asia Road Network. Hoau Group had been operating since 1995, with around 12,000 employees.

The company said it has since become the “key road delivery service provider” to major Chinese ecommerce operators, and that in 2011 it was ranked as the leading road delivery service for seven consecutive months by Alibaba.com customers.

Source: Post&Parcel/TNT Express

Tags: China, ecommerce, Tencent, TNT Express, TNT Hoau