11:00 p.m. the same day, a goal that is met 90 percent of the time,
according to the company. “People living in mountainous regions
hardly accessible by ground transportation also have the right to
shop,” said Cui Zheng, a manager overseeing JD’s drone delivery
program in northwest China. “We are giving them the same shop-
ping experience, same price, by flying drones.”
9
Providing Reliable Access to Goods
Delivering those much-needed products by drone helps the com-
pany further its vision of giving all consumers fast, reliable access
to quality goods, no matter where they live. Delivering goods by
drone also makes good financial sense for the company because
of the rapidly growing demand for consumer products in rural
areas, where more than 600 million people live and online retail
sales topped $200 billion in 2019. By JD’s own estimates, mak-
ing a delivery by drone costs the company about one-fifth of the
price of a driver and a vehicle. Liu Qiangdong, JD’s chief execu-
tive, predicted drone delivery will cut costs by 70 percent once it
is scaled up across the country.
A courier delivers a parcel
to its nal destination.
Typically, once a drone
drops off a package, a
local resident known
as a “drone postman”
completes the delivery.
