AsiaIndustrial NetNews: According to foreign media CNBC reports, Liu Qiangdong believes that drone technology can help e-commerce companies such as JD.com deliver goods to remote areas, saving a lot of logistics expenses. He said new technologies will revolutionize the retail industry within the next five years, and that the next decade will be faster than the past century.
Recently, Liu Qiangdong, founder and CEO of JD.com, accepted an exclusive interview with CNBC.RobotShipping express can drastically reduce costs and revolutionize the entire logistics industry. Liu Qiangdong believes that drone technology can help e-commerce companies such as JD.com deliver goods to remote areas, saving a lot of logistics expenses. “Now we have formed a courier army of 70,000 people, and the cost of maintaining this team is quite high.” Liu Qiangdong said. “If you can use robots to deliver the goods, the cost will drop significantly.”
Both JD.com and Alibaba already have well-established logistics networks in major Chinese cities, but with the rise of China’s middle class, the purchasing power of small cities and villages is also increasing year by year, but the logistics networks in these areas are not perfect and the delivery experience of goods is poor. .
“In the past, it was very troublesome to do business in rural areas, because the logistics costs were too high, and it was difficult to reduce the cost.” Liu Qiangdong explained. Therefore, he believes that replacing car delivery with drones can significantly reduce costs. “This method can reduce logistics costs by at least 70%, so that JD.com’s profitability can be greatly improved.”
According to a report released by McKinsey last year, the global package delivery cost can reach 78.38 billion US dollars a year, and China, the United States and Germany alone account for 40% of the global market, and e-commerce is the main driver of growth.
At the same time, the report also pointed out that the delivery of the last mile is the highest proportion of the entire logistics cost, sometimes even more than 50%. Recently, Liu Qiangdong said in an interview with the media that consumers have become more and more picky about the speed of express delivery, so many e-commerce companies have also launched one-day delivery services, which will further drive up logistics costs.
Currently, JD.com already has a drone with a speed of 100km/h, which can deliver 5-30kg of goods. At the same time, JD.com is also testing large drones with a payload of 1,000 kilograms. As for the future drone delivery mode in rural areas, Liu Qiangdong explained: “In each village, we will arrange a courier who works and lives here. Of course, the courier must have a large yard at home. , and this yard will become the goods distribution center of JD.com. The daily job of the courier is to operate the drone delivery in the yard. Since the villagers’ residence is fixed, the flight route of the drone is also preset.”
As for the question of whether a large number of robots will be employed and whether people will lose their jobs, Liu Qiangdong said that everyone is overly concerned. “We also need a lot of staff to operate the cameras to observe or control the drones and robots, and the warehouse also needs warehouse managers. To make the whole system work smoothly, no one can’t do it.”
Liu Qiangdong believes that new technology will completely revolutionize the retail industry in the next five years, and the speed of technological progress in the next ten years will exceed the past century; and said that in the next five to eight years, delivery may be all robots.
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