SingPost to build $143m e-commerce logistics hub
Singapore Post has unveiled plans to establish a major new eCommerce Logistics Hub to take forward its expanding e-commerce operations in the Asia Pacific region. The S$182m ($143m USD), 553,000 square foot facility will include a fully-automated parcel sorting system on the ground floor, with two warehousing floors above.
The building is to be built at Tampines LogisPark on a 3.25-hectare site leased for 30 years from JTC Corporation, the state-owned industrial estate developer.
It is expected to be completed at the end of January 2016 and fully operational by the second half of 2016.
The facility is being designed to handle as many as 100,000 parcels per day.
Along with its warehousing and sorting capabilities, the new hub will include an eight-storey office complex which will house SingPost’s logistics admin operations, including for subsidiaries Quantium Solutions and Lock+Store.
Wolfgang Baier, the group chief executive at SingPost, said the new facility will further boost his company’s aspirations to be the region’s e-commerce centre.
He said the new facility would allow SingPost to branch out into more e-commerce solutions like fulfillment.
“Critical infrastructure”
“This Hub is an integral part of SingPost Group’s strategy as we expand our ecommerce logistics business and capitalize on the fast-growing ecommerce market here in Singapore and the region,” he said.
“With this critical infrastructure in place, it will radically transform our full range of ecommerce logistics capabilities, across warehousing, fulfillment, sorting and delivery. It will also enable SingPost to offer very cost-efficiently integrated efulfilment solutions to our customers in a scalable manner.”
SingPost said the e-commerce market in the Asia Pacific region is set to hit $708bn (USD) in value in 2016, 41% growth compared to the 2014 level of $502bn, with the rise of the middle income group in the region, and improving Internet and mobile penetration.
The postal operator said the associate e-commerce logistics market was set to grow to more than $175bn (USD) by 2016.
SingPost, which is 10.32% owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has been scaling up its investment in its e-commerce capabilities, with the growth in online retail helping the company to counter the declining letters business.
Baier said: “As we expand our local market presence in Asian countries with local warehousing and local delivery, we need an efficient regional hub. There is no better place for such a hub than in Singapore.”
