Thanks to the e-commerce boom, China's express delivery market is expected to become the world's biggest within 20 years.

In China's package delivery market, global players, including FedEx and UPS, meet obstacles and resistance in expansion. China's local express delivery companies can ship packages at much lower price, which prices out global players which control just 3 percent of the Chinese market.

Chinese local privately run firms such as Shentong Express threatens even China Postal Express, the largest Chinese firm in the domestic delivery market. Some market watchers point out that reliability, service and specialization will matter more than low cost in the future, which would finally lead to consolidation process. However, at least for now, in this industry, smaller is better.

"The local couriers don't wear uniforms, drive nice trucks or have fancy gadgets that those at foreign firms have. But they still get the job done," said Max Henry, a Shanghai-based expert on China's supply chain. "The Chinese are very cost-aware."

Backed by an e-commerce boom, China's express delivery market more than doubled to $13 billion in revenue in the five years to 2011, and is expected to overtake the $70 billion U.S. market to become the world's biggest within two decades.

"You can ship from Shenzhen to Guangzhou a pound of barbecue pork for 2 or 3 renminbi (31-47 U.S. cents)," Jerry Hsu, Asia-Pacific head of DHL Express, told Reuters, referring to the two southern cities that are 730 kilometers (454 miles) apart.

The rise of local privately run firms such as Shentong Express and S.F. Express threatens even China Postal Express, the largest Chinese firm in the domestic delivery market. China Postal, the operator of the Express Mail Service (EMS), has seen its domestic market share by volume fall to less than a third last year from near 60 percent in 2006.

Xu Yong, chief consultant at China Express Consulting, said industry consolidation could result in as few as a handful of major couriers, most likely including S.F. Express and EMS. "Others will be integrated into larger ones and more focused on certain segments, such as frozen seafood, cosmetics and pharmaceutical delivery," he said. "Our estimates are based on what we see in the United States and Europe, where only a handful of major couriers exist."