Digital Freight Brokerage Soars as Mobile Technology and Low Costs Fuel Growth
While competition in the global market for digital freight brokerage will likely heat up in the next couple of years, new advances in mobile technology, vehicle tracking and lower technology cost are expected to fuel rapid growth.
Some of the prominent players include Echo Global Logistics Inc., Coyote Logistics, Transfix, LLC, Convoy, Cargomatic Inc., Trucker Path Inc., J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., Cargocentric Inc., Uber Freight and TGMatrix Limited.
A report by Transparency Market Research finds that the global market for digital freight brokerage was worth US$144.5 mn in 2016 and by clocking a whopping 61.7% CAGR during the period between 2017 and 2025, it would likely become worth US$10,964.3 mn by 2025.
Experts subdivide the digital freight brokerage market into food and beverage, healthcare, automotive, retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, and others such as aerospace and defense. Of them, the segment of retail and e-commerce is projected to grow at a maximum pace primarily due to fast growing, large economies of Asia Pacific.
Behind the growth is the technology. Consider the number of sophisticated smartphones, improved wireless connectivity and their swift uptake, and advantages of digital platforms making it all happen.
“In the traditional freight brokerage market, carriers and the load might sit idle till the deal is finalized by brokers over the phone or mail. But, the proliferation of smartphones and tablets makes this process much more efficient by letting shippers find carriers on demand and also eliminate steep brokerage fees,” explains the lead analyst of the TMR report.
Swift uptake of wireless connectivity technologies, namely 3G and 4G, particularly in developing countries and efforts by developed nations to usher in 5G in the near future will have a further positive impact on the market.
Posing a challenge to the market, on the other hand, is the quality of carriers matched with digital freight platforms. To overcome the challenge, companies operating in the market are trying to supply quality carriers by acting upon feedbacks from shippers and pre-verifying the carriers. Blockchain technology presents enormous opportunity to the market as they can serve to make digital freight platforms transparent and secure.
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
