Rising Air Freight Costs Linked to Temu & Shein

Good morning, Nerders. It’s Wednesday, August 14th. In today’s newsletter, we cover:

• How Temu & Shein are impacting the air freight market

• Can the U.S. keep its lead in the AI race?

• Google’s healthcare push

TODAY’S STORY

The air freight market is changing rapidly.

Traditionally, air freight, the shipment of goods through an air carrier, has been dominated by small, high-value items (e.g., artwork, laptops, mobile phones) and perishables (e.g., fresh produce, medical supplies, live animals).

But now: Low-cost e-commerce platforms Temu and Shein are flooding air routes to transport low-cost clothing and household goods and ensure customers get their orders quickly.

The surge in air cargo volumes is driving up air freight prices. In June, prices for air routes out of southern China, China’s manufacturing hub, were up ~40% from a year ago.

Amazon’s e-commerce play to help Chinese-based merchants sell directly to U.S. consumers planned for this Fall could send prices even higher as they negotiate for space on similar air freight routes.

Temu and Shein have put air freight volumes on the path to double-digit growth for 2024, but this could also threaten air freight capacity for other brands during peak shipping seasons like Christmas.

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DATA BYTES

• The United States is the leading source of top AI models, far outpacing China and the European Union

• Some Chinese firms are relying on open-source AI models from the United States to build various products and applications rather than using Chinese AI models, which were built from scratch and are not very good yet

#SHORTS

Google’s healthcare push

@boringbusinesskieran

google’s healthcare push // make sure to follow me to keep up with the latest business stories and trends #business #google #healthcare

Watch on: TikTok, YouTube, Instagram

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To read the web version of previous stories, click here

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Thanks for reading,
Kieran & Justin Ryan