E-commerce: Chinese company JD.com looking to deploy 200,000 delivery drones

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Dec 24, 2015

Richard Qiangdong Liu, founder of Chinese online retailer JD.com, announced he is willing to deploy a fleet of 200,000 drones to service Chinese cities and rural areas.
 

The statement was made by Qiangdong Liu in an interview to the People's Journal, indicating that some 1,000 flying delivery devices will be allocated to each major town. Qiangdong Liu didn't suggest any deadline by which he expects to achieve this mammoth objective, a possible solution to the huge delivery problem affecting a country-continent such as China.
 
The potential of online sales in China is now an acknowledged fact. In the current fiscal year, e-commerce in China is expected to generate some €522 billion in sales, compared to €475 billion in 2014. Given that worldwide sales are expected to reach €2 trillion in 2019, the strongest growth, +60%, is forecast to be recorded in China, a market where foreign players will need to deal with or approach the local powerhouses.
Leaders Tmall (Alibaba) and JD.com alone reportedly accounted for respectively 57% and 21% of online sales in 2014.

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The landscape is by no means different for mobile sales: Alibaba swallows up 85% of those through Taobao and Tmall, while JD.com grabs 7% of the remainder.