(Yicai) Jan. 10 -- Courier giant J&T Express, which collects more than half of its revenue from China, has appointed its first China chief executive after separating such business from global operations.

Liu Wei, a member of the company’s founding team, will serve as J&T's China CEO and report to Executive Director Fan Suzhou, The Paper reported today. Fan and Vice President Hou Junyi will focus on managing business overseas to enter new markets. 

China has a larger scale of business, but the company can charge more overseas, The Paper wrote, citing a company source, who added that separating operations could mean that the firm will zoom in on the Chinese market. J&T already adjusted its structure in China late last year and split some departments that have little correlation with its business to form subsidiaries, the insider added.

Founded in Indonesia in August 2015, J&T is operational in 13 countries in various regions including Latin America and the Middle East. It entered China in 2020 and acquired Best’s domestic parcel delivery business for CNY6.8 billion (USD947.9 million) the next year. In 2022, the firm acquired another Chinese logistic provider called Fengwang Information Technology for CNY1.2 billion. The firm went public last October.

J&T delivered over 12 billion parcels in China in 2022, with a market share of nearly 11 percent, according to its prospectus. More than four-fifths of J&T's global parcels were delivered in China and more than half of its revenue came from the market but due to its rising investment in technology infrastructure, and scale, the firm continued to lose money in China.

In the first half of last year, J&T achieved USD4 billion in revenue, up 18 percent from a year ago, according to its interim report. Revenue from China tallied USD2.2 billion, up 12 percent. Its total loss was USD3.4 billion as of June 30, last year, from 2020.

Editor: Emmi Laine