Teleport, the logistics arm of Malaysia’s Capital A Bhd, is charting an aggressive course to dominate the e-commerce delivery space.
By strategically leveraging underutilized airline belly space and investing heavily in technology, Teleport aims to process an astounding 2 million parcels daily (around four times more as compared to 509,000 daily parcels in the first quarter of 2025) by the close of 2025.
TNGlobal recently talked to Milan Dhingra, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Teleport, to know more about how Teleport is leveraging an unconventional asset-light model to reach its ambitious target of moving 2 million parcels a day by year-end, the company’s technological backbone and its unique competitive advantages.
He shared insights on Teleport’s strategic vision to drive its rapid expansion, the unique challenges Teleport faces in operating in the highly competitive cross-border logistics industry, among others.
Teleport achieved a record revenue of MYR258 million ($60.72 million) in the first quarter of 2025 (1Q25), a 15 percent year-on-year jump. Its eCommerce revenue saw a 39 percent surge to MYR88 million ($20.71 million), driven by a 44 percent increase in parcels moved (27.8 million).
Cargo revenue also grew 7 percent year-on-year, with a 13 percent increase in total air freight volumes (77,600 tonnes), according to notes accompanying Capital A’s financial statements.
Operationally, Teleport achieved a record peak of 509,000 daily parcels, with 40 percent of parcels moved via its effective airline partner model, beyond AirAsia belly space. Teleport posted its highest 1Q25 EBITDA of MYR23 million ($5.41 million).
Below is the edited excerpts of the interview:
1. a) Teleport is a subsidiary of Capital A Bhd, how does that help? What are the pros and cons?
b) What is Teleport’s competitive advantage against other players? How does Teleport’s technology investment and focus on big data create a sustainable competitive advantage in the highly-competitive eCommerce logistics market in Southeast Asia and globally?
Our origin story is a bit unique from a typical logistics company. Three things in particular sets us apart:
i. We built an unconventional asset-light logistics business model by leveraging and maximising underutilised belly space of passenger airlines.
ii. How did we do this? We started by combining all AirAsia and AirAsia X’s six airlines into the single largest Southeast Asian air logistics network, allowing us to move goods – from small parcels to bulk cargo – seamlessly across the region. Fast forward to today, we work alongside a global network of 50+ partner airlines in the same way. Our partner airlines work with us, enabling them to earn incremental revenue on their surplus belly capacity with minimal interference and operational diversification to their core passenger business.
iii. What really sets us apart from our senior logistics peers is that we are built with eCommerce in mind first. Not cargo. The thing is, most legacy air logistics companies were mostly built for bulk, predictable shipments. Not quite designed to handle the high-volume movement of small, individual parcels that we see today with eCommerce. The kind of tech and orchestration that is needed here is at parcel level, and one that scales accordingly to how eCommerce behaves, which is very different from general cargo — this is very limited today.
2. What are Teleport’s short term and long term goals? How to achieve these goals?
Our goal from day one is simple — to move things across Southeast Asia faster, cheaper, and better than anyone else.
And we have set out to achieve an ambitious stretch target of moving 2 million parcels a day by end-2025. This will put Teleport on par with global players in terms of peak volume per day.
Our ability to scale our operations to meet this target while keeping our operational cost and resilience in check, will be driven by the tech we have already put in place this year, with full implementation to be completed in phases over next year.
3. What are some of the unique challenges Teleport faces in operating in the cross-border logistics industry, considering varying regulations, customs procedures, and infrastructure across China, Southeast Asia, and beyond? How to address these challenges?
What most people cannot see is that eCommerce behaves very differently from general cargo – which the larger air cargo players already do very well in.
General cargo by air tends to be quite predictable in terms of volume and scheduling predictability. And speed is not a requirement.
Typical cross-border logistics challenges that most logistics companies in this region tend to face can come in many shape or form, such as –
i. Different regulatory and compliance requirements – from across 10 different countries in Southeast Asia; between China and Southeast Asia and more
ii. Varying infrastructure and processing standards and speed, country by country.
iii. Geographical events in the regions that we have seen in recent times that interrupted flight schedules such as volcanic eruptions
These are day-to-day issues for us to manage on an ongoing basis. Having the right operational set-up that would allow us to be nimble enough to respond to each situation in the right way, at the right place, at the right time, is key.
On top of the known and unknown challenges that we have to deal with on a daily basis, Teleport’s mission to move things faster, cheaper, better, makes speed – now an element or requirement that is no longer a “bonus”.
With eCommerce consumer expectations today becoming increasingly sophisticated – fast, reliable service is no longer a “nice-to-have” feature but a necessity, in our view.
How we have built our Teleport Network and our entire asset-light operations – is what affords us the ability to demonstrate our operational resilience.
For example: High frequency of daily flights throughout Southeast Asia across the network of multiple partner airlines combined, including AirAsia, gives us the ability to recognise issues and pivot fast – through the real-time data and insights that our tech stack feeds back to us – from estimating a flight’s belly capacity and checking how many parcels it can carry, to the next available flight.
The system connects all these elements together to allow for seamless and live orchestration – even when troubleshooting for plan B.
This is how we are able to continue to build and maintain our eCommerce marketplace customers’ trust – that we have the operational resilience and flexibility to be reliably faster, cheaper and better than other players. And by doing this, they in turn are able to delight their customers – eCommerce consumers like you and me – with faster, better service.
4. a) What does “seamless end-to-end delivery” truly mean for Teleport in the context of eCommerce? What specific pain points or inefficiencies in the traditional eCommerce delivery journey is the technology roadmap aiming to eliminate?
b) What technological investments are being prioritized to support this anticipated growth and reach your target of 2 million parcels a day by the end of 2025?
c) What types of data are you collecting to gain insights into cross-border logistics? How do you ensure the accuracy and completeness of this data, especially when dealing with multiple stakeholders and diverse geographical regions?
Like I mentioned earlier, general cargo by air tends to be quite predictable in terms of volume and scheduling predictability.
eCommerce, on the other hand, in one word, is unpredictable. Unpredictable volumes, multiple different destinations – on a daily basis. And at parcel level, not bulk build up level.
Most logistics tech that is available today is good at managing cargo at bulk level. There is very limited tech today that can handle the unpredictable behaviours of eCommerce well. At the rate that we need to run to meet our own benchmark of faster and better service, we can’t afford to skirt around or wait for the right tech to exist. We have to build it ourselves.
Our tech roadmap is anchored on executing trust in three ways:
i. We must have the right, real time visibility to trust our own data to enable us to make the right decisions at the right time. Which most importantly, leads to operational trust and greater control over our operations. This is executed across three layers of tech that controls Orchestration, Visibility and Intelligence – end-to-end, from first to last mile of our supply chain.
ii. Our first- to last-mile supply chain comprises multiple enterprises on a very different, larger level. If you look at just our mid-mile by air alone, which is anchored on our Teleport Network – we are working with over 50 partner airlines, managing coordination and sequencing from freighter capacity to belly capacity under one airway bill. The system we put in place needs to be able to see and talk to each other seamlessly, continuously and in real-time – as this is key to functional orchestration and synchronisation of shipment movements. Right place, right time and right partner. Our partners need to be able to trust the data that leads to this orchestration, to enable them to better support us end-to-end. It’s a win-win.
iii. With greater end-to-end control and visibility, we can extend that assurance or guarantee to our customer – which in turn, retains our customers’ trust with us. With increased trust that we are able to deliver on our SLA, our customers will continue to trust us with more volume.
Let me expand further on our Orchestration, Visibility and Intelligence layers:
First is our Orchestration layer. Think of it as our central system that connects shippers, carriers, customs, and end customers with real-time data from shipment orders to fleet status. With this, we’re able to model scenarios and optimise routes, costs, and operations for maximum efficiency and throughput.
Secondly is our Visibility layer. It gives us the full visibility of parcel movement, directly answering, “Where’s my parcel now?”. We collect real-time tracking data, like live coordinates and delivery timestamps from our third-party logistics (3PL), operations and Cargo Terminal Operations (CTO) partners. By doing this, we can instantly spot and fix potential delays at the right time.
Lastly is our Intelligence layer. We use machine learning on our historical data to predict real-time disruption and pivot faster. This includes deciding the most efficient route and predicting the actual belly space capacity to know how many parcels we can actually fill it in. We also use Artificial Intelligence to identify the right commodity code for each parcel and detect dangerous goods.
In the end, it’s all about reinforcing our ability to protect and grow this trust that we have built for our partners and customers, and how the scalability of this tech roadmap will allow us to be faster, cheaper and better on a continuous basis.
We are a continuous growth company, always focusing on how we can be better all the time.