Meituan's "Aerial Rider" sets a record with 740,000 orders, JD.com and Taobao flash sales ramp up efforts, instant retail ignites a second battlefield

According to the domestic media "Daily Economic News," after the commercial operations in Dubai and Hong Kong, Meituan's drone business has made new progress. Last Friday (December 19), Meituan drones launched multiple products, including a low-altitude air network for drones, an intelligent connection airport for drones, and the latest generation of drone products. Mao Yinian, Vice President of Meituan and head of the drone business department, revealed that as of now, Meituan drones have operated 65 routes in cities such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, as well as Hong Kong and Dubai, completing 740,000 commercial orders.

At this launch event, Meituan drones introduced several new products. Among them, the M-Port3 airport for drone parking features a tree-shaped design, with a drone landing pad on top and a food pickup cabinet below, equipped with Meituan's self-developed robotic arm, supporting millimeter-level precise grabbing (error ±1mm), which can directly grab and place the food delivered by drones into the pickup cabinet.

It is reported that in the fiercely competitive instant retail battlefield, low-altitude has also become a key battleground. On December 12, Shansong launched its first "reusable drone takeoff and landing point" in Hangzhou, initiating a new model of "air-ground collaboration" for same-city instant delivery. In November, Taobao Flash Purchase announced that it had opened four drone routes in Huaniao Island, Shengsi County, Zhoushan, Zhejiang, for consumption and emergency delivery on the islands. In October, JD Logistics (02618.HK) announced that it would purchase 3 million robots, 1 million unmanned vehicles, and 100,000 drones over the next five years, fully investing in the logistics supply chain across all scenarios. In addition, SF Express (09699.HK) is also exploring business collaboration with instant delivery through the drone business of SF Group.

Pan Helin, a member of the Information and Communication Economic Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated that instant retail and delivery platforms are trying to develop the low-altitude economy, which aligns with policy calls and is an exploration of applications in low-altitude delivery logistics. However, he also mentioned that unmanned delivery is still in the exploratory stage, and as unmanned delivery technology matures and stability improves, there should be a promising market outlook in the future