A drone photo taken on July 11, 2025 shows an interior view of a logistics transfer center in Hengfeng County, Shangrao City, east China's Jiangxi Province. (Xinhua/Liu Jinhai)

China's express delivery volume surpassed 150 billion parcels as of Saturday, reaching the milestone 37 days earlier than in 2024, the State Post Bureau (SPB) said on Sunday. This fully demonstrates that the country's consumer market has posted steady growth and its economy has maintained overall stability and made steady progress, analysts said.

Since the beginning of 2025, China has comprehensively upgraded its express service capabilities by accelerating the standardized construction of municipal sorting centers, county-level distribution centers, and township service stations in central and western regions. From January to August, regions including Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province all reported year-on-year growth of more than 30 percent in express volume, state broadcaster CCTV News reported on Sunday.

Behind the country's massive postal and express volume is efficient resource allocation. So far, 1,300 large-scale postal and express processing centers have been built, as well as more than 400 specialized logistics parks, and 420,000 village-level delivery service stations, achieving full urban-rural coverage of the service network.

Sci-tech innovation has injected new momentum into industry development, as thousands of unmanned vehicles and more than 300 drones have been put into operation, with drones delivering nearly 3 million express items.

An SPB official attributed the achievement to a series of support policies and continuous improvement in the business environment, which have created a favorable situation for the development of postal and express delivery enterprises.

"Linking manufacturing and consumption, the postal and express delivery industry acts as a leading sector that drives the transformation of circulation patterns and consumption upgrading. The massive express volume not only reflects the accelerating unleashing of domestic consumer demand but also serves as a vivid testament to China's economic vitality and upward trend," Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

From January to August, retail sales rose 4.6 percent year-on-year to 32.39 trillion yuan ($4.54 trillion), while online retail sales surged by 9.6 percent to 9.98 trillion yuan, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The index tracking the country's logistics market reached 51.2 in September, up 0.3 points from the previous month, data from the China Logistics and Purchasing Federation (CFLP) showed on Saturday.

Logistics connects different sectors of the real economy, and the improvement in the supply and demand of the logistics sector underscores an increasingly solid foundation for overall economic growth, He Hui, chief economist of the CFLP, told the Global Times on Sunday.

He said that market demand is stabilizing, manufacturing is expanding steadily, and new growth drivers continue to accelerate their expansion. Along with the peak of the production and construction season in October, coupled with support of macroeconomic policies, domestic enterprises' market expectations have generally improved.

With its network covering the entire nation and reaching the globe, the postal and express delivery industry has provided solid support for the smooth circulation of the national economy, said the SPB official. "As a key component of the modern logistics system during a crucial period of economic transformation and upgrading, the industry will continue to promote its high-quality development and accelerate the cultivation of new quality productive forces," said the official.