Meituan releases drone operation data: Last year, more than 100,000 orders were completed, with an average delivery time of 12 minutes

Reporter｜Yu Hao

As the end of the Year of the Tiger approaches, Meituan UAV, which has been in normal trial operation for two years, has released its latest operating results.

According to data released by Meituan drones, as of the end of 2022, Meituan drones have delivered more than 120,000 orders in total, of which more than 100,000 orders will be completed in 2022, and more than 20,000 types of goods can be delivered; delivery time On the other hand, the average delivery time of drones last year was about 12 minutes, which was nearly 150% more efficient than the average 30 minutes of traditional delivery.

Meituan’s drone delivery service exploration began in 2017, and completed its first takeaway order in early 2021, officially starting the normalized trial operation. In the two years since the trial operation, Meituan’s drones have successively landed in Shenzhen and Shanghai. According to the data disclosed this time, Meituan’s drone routes have covered 18 communities and office buildings, serving nearly 20,000 households.

Since there is no need to face the problem of ground traffic congestion, the delivery efficiency of drones is higher than that of riders. At present, drones can deliver more than 20,000 types of goods, and the cooperative merchants include catering, beauty makeup, fast-moving consumer products, and supermarkets. Following the cooperation with Xiaomi Home in early 2022, iPhone, vivo and other brands also choose to cooperate with Meituan drones for delivery when new products are released.

Focusing on the UAV industry, the high cost of R&D and unimproved policies are two obstacles to the large-scale commercialization of UAVs. Using the human-machine collaborative distribution model to improve distribution efficiency and reduce distribution costs is a focus of Meituan’s exploration of drone distribution. On the other hand, the use of unmanned delivery equipment is also conducive to reducing traffic accidents caused by takeaway riders pursuing timeliness.

Mao Nian, head of Meituan’s drone business, has pointed out in multiple scenarios that in the next 5 to 10 years, the cost of drone delivery will be equal to that of the takeaway brother. Yang Junwei, head of Meituan’s drone business operations, said in an interview with Jiemian News that the current cost is rapidly diluting, but he did not disclose the specific data.

Liu Shengjun, an associate professor at the Law School of Civil Aviation University of China, once suggested in an interview with the media that the commercialization of drone delivery in my country needs to be followed up in a timely manner in policy improvement and laws and regulations. He believes that the “Shenzhen Civil UAV Management Measures (Draft for Comment)” issued by the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Justice in October 2021 is the first time that drone delivery has appeared in local legislation, which means that legal policies have begun to recognize that “no Human-machine distribution is expected to start from the imagination of the business model and enter the stage of pilot implementation and gradual promotion and implementation.”

At the end of August 2022, Meituan UAVs announced that it has landed 11 regular trial operation routes in Shenzhen, covering more than 10 communities and office buildings. Judging from this data, the current scope of Meituan’s drone trial operation is still concentrated in Shenzhen. This also reflects from the side that it is still difficult to commercialize civilian drones on a large scale in many places.

In September last year, Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province, Shijiazhuang City in Hebei Province, Taiyuan City in Shanxi Province, and Liangjiang New District in Chongqing City were officially approved as national civil unmanned aviation test areas, and will conduct UAV system safety, reliability and verification compliance Research. The establishment of these test areas provides a running-in platform for various aviation tools, or will accelerate the commercialization of drone distribution in various places.