Meituan Puts Drone Delivery Infrastructure Into Commercial Use

(Yicai) May 22 -- Chinese on-demand services giant Meituan has put its self-developed low-altitude logistics infrastructure into commercial use and started nationwide recruitment for authorized service providers.The infrastructure includes fourth-generation long-range rappelling drone M-Drone 4L Winch, intelligent airport shuttle M-Port 3, and the cloud pivot of drone operation control system M-DaaS 3, Meituan said in a statement yesterday.After completing the first drone delivery of a real order in Shenzhen in early 2021, the Beijing-based firm opened its first regular service route in December 2022 to start drone delivery service trials.Meituan had 70 drone service routes in cities such as Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Dubai at the end of last year, having completed more than 780,000 orders.Meituan’s drone delivery orders have been rising over the past five years, especially after the firm launched the service at night and in the rain, Mao Yinian, vice president of Meituan and head of its drone business, told Yicai. Orders received at a single point location have jumped from around 10 orders a day to up to 400 now.With increases in the order volume and flight efficiency, equipment, battery, energy, and venue rental costs are decreasing, with the operation cost per order down by 40 percent to 50 percent anually, Mao said.Meituan’s low-altitude delivery mainly targets difficult scenarios in land transport, such as the delivery of medical samples, he noted. The company has opened drone delivery routes for medical samples in Shanghai and Sichuan province to deliver medical materials to patients in urgent need.Meituan is licensing its low-altitude logistics solutions to authorized partners to enable them to serve in more scenarios by using its system, Mao explained, adding that the firm has signed agreements with 10 authorized service providers.Given the support by local governments and resources invested by major enterprises, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta Region, and the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle are expected to become the Chinese regions with the highest degree of commercial use of low-altitude logistics, likely experiencing explosive growth this or next year, Zhao Xiaomin, a logistics and delivery expert, told Yicai.Besides policy support and the evolution of corporate technologies, the rapid development of low-altitude logistics also needs more application scenarios, so operators should develop diversified service products based on the actual demand in special scenarios, Zhao believes.Low-altitude delivery still faces many core challenges, said Zhang Yi, chief executive of iiMedia Research. Flight approval in urban airspace, flight security, and issues such as noise and the risk of objects falling because of drones require more specific regulation, he noted.Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione