Rajax Network & Technology Co, known as eleme, a domestic online meal-ordering platform giant, held a ceremony on Sunday in Shanghai to mark the signing of contracts with dozens of third-party logistics providers.
It said that these arrangements would help it satisfy rising distribution demand and build itself into China's largest instant distribution supplier.
Founder and CEO Zhang Xuhao announced Sunday that eleme plans this year to build distribution teams with "hundreds of thousands" of delivery personnel, without disclosing the exact figure. The network is expected to cover 500 cities and support the distribution of 3 million orders every day.
Co-founder Kang Jia estimated that daily orders will reach 50 million meals within five years.
Eleme has its own distribution team of about 4,000 people now, "but relying on more third-party distribution providers is more important," Kang told the Global Times on Sunday. "Our own distribution force will be lowered to 5 percent (of the total) in the next few years."