The France freight and logistics market has been on a constant rise since the past few years and is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 4.5% in the coming years. France leads Europe with the highest number of industrial and logistics projects. The Logistics 2025 plan aims at improving infrastructure to enhance the intermodality of the transport network while simplifying the administrative management of the supply chain. Digital transition, energy transition, and a sustainable supply chain are some of the key focus areas. The development of the high-speed freight network is expected to bring about a modal shift towards rail freight.

Key Market Trends

Boost in E-commerce Sales providing growth to the Logistics Sector

With a population of 65.1 million people, with 68 percent of them being internet users, the country is currently ranked fifth leading country in the world for online sales. There are more than 120,000 active ecommerce sites in France. The most visited online store in the country is Amazon, with more than 15 million unique visitors per month. Other big online players are Cdiscount, eBay, Fnac and Priceminister. Whereas fashion is a popular product category, retailers La Redoute and 3 Suisses are amongst the biggest fashion players in French ecommerce. From the sales through these sites, the online retail market is expected to reach around ?115.2 billion by end of 2020. A boost in e-commerce market is driving the logistics sector to new growth levels. The Logistics and express delivery companies in the country are undertaking key expansion plans at major airports, to expand the cargo handling capacity. Major capacity expansion plans include logistics and warehouse infrastructure development around key airports such as Charles de Gaulle International Airport in the Paris suburb of Roissy. With continuous developments to facilitate the delivery handling and shipment process at airports over the years the air freight prices have reduced thus, making airways more favorable to logistics companies for import and exports.

Increasing Investment Volumes in Logistics Sector in France

Over the years, the French government has invested in various modes of transportation in the form of various projects like “The Grand Paris Express project” for railways in 2015. Currently France has a total of 29,901 km of railway network. Rail transport is mostly operated by SNCF, the French national railway company. Due to continuous investments over the years, the overall road and rail project pipeline has a value of around ?19.13bn. Nowadays, the high-speed rail lines link Paris and other major French cities to many destinations outside of France, including London, England; Brussels, Belgium; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Cologne, Germany. The government is also planning for updating and modernizing its existing infrastructure, France also plans to cover 1,000 km (621 miles) of roads with solar panels, facilitating power provision to as much as 8% of the French population. The installation is expected to complete by 2021. The current focus of the French government is to boost the local transportation facilities to facilitate the efficiency of day to day logistics. To achieve this aim, a total of ?13.4bn is to be invested in transportation sector from 2018-2022, with ?6.8bn in railways and ?5.1bn in roadways. This is likely to give a boost to overall efficiency of the logistics market in France.

Competitive Landscape

The industry is quite fragmented with many players existing in the freight and logistics market. With the increasing E-commerce market and developing infrastructure plans the French economy has potential for growth and opportunities for new players to penetrate the market. Some of the existing major players in the market include – DB Schenker, UPS, DHL, FedEx, Yusen Logistics, XPO Logistics, MSC (mediterranean shipping company), Ekol logistics, Kuehne Nagel International AG, Schneider Transport, Bansard International and FlyTrans International Forwarders.

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