Advertisment

Walmart invests in DroneUp for last mile delivery with drones

author-image
DQINDIA Online
New Update
walmart_drone_delivery

Walmart stores is investing in DroneUp to enable last mile delivery to its customers. DroneUp provides drone flight services to businesses and government organizations and operates on an on demand drone delivery network. It is an authorized government drone service provider in 11 US states and operates commercially throughout US.

Advertisment

John Furner, CEO and President, Walmart US, writes on the company blog, “Walmart already has a significant part of the infrastructure in place – 4,700 stores stocked with more than 100,000 of the most-purchased items, located within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population.

This makes us uniquely positioned to execute drone deliveries, which is why our investment in DroneUp won’t just apply to the skies but also the ground. In the coming months we’ll be beginning our first operation at a store in Bentonville, Arkansas.”

Advertisment

“The drone services industry has reached an inflection point of rapidly increased adoption and acceptance. Walmart and DroneUp are uniquely positioned to succeed in the next chapter of last-mile delivery. Walmart’s vast hub-and-spoke network, combined with DroneUp’s extensive operational expertise, will unlock affordable rapid delivery and nationwide drone services.” Says Tom Walker Founder & CEO of DroneUp.

This isn’t the first rodeo in drone delivery with DroneUp for Walmart. Last year the retail giant partnered with the former to launch trial deliveries of at-home Covid19 self-collection kits. Furner states in the blog, “The trial demonstrated we could offer customers delivery in minutes versus hours.”

Walmart is upping the last mile delivery game with DeepTech. In April, Walmart announced an investment in Cruise, an electric autonomous vehicle company. As mentioned in a company blog last year, the pilot project with Cruise would enable customers to place an order from local store and have it delivered contact free through one of the self driving cars.

Advertisment