China’s e-commerce giants deploy robots to deliver orders amid coronavirus outbreak

As customer fears about the coronavirus cast a shadow over China’s food delivery industry, several companies have announced robot delivery-related services

Meituan put its autonomous delivery vehicles on public roads for the first time this week, while JD.com and Ele.me are sending robots into quarantine areas

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A photo of Meituan's unmanned delivery vehicle. Photo: Handout

Published: 6:00am, 21 Feb 2020Updated: 6:50am, 21 Feb 2020

Chinese e-commerce giants are ramping up their deployment of robots to deliver orders in an effort to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus through human-to-human contact.

Delivery app Meituan Dianping, which launched a “contactless delivery” initiative across China last month, said this week that it had started using autonomous vehicles to send grocery orders to customers in Shunyi district in Beijing, and was looking to launch similar robot delivery services in other districts in the capital city.

The company began testing indoor delivery robots and drones for deliveries last year, but this is the first time it is deploying autonomous delivery vehicles on public roads, it said in a post on WeChat.

“This project is to minimise the risk of potential infections caused by human contact and meet the needs of customers in this special time,” Meituan said. According to a spokeswoman, the vehicle can carry up to 100 kilograms of goods and deliver three to five orders on each trip.

The company’s contactless and robot delivery initiatives address recent customer fears of coming into contact with couriers, concerns which have cast a shadow over the country’s booming food delivery industry. A sick courier in Shenzhen worked for 14 days before he was diagnosed with the disease, while four staff at a fast-food restaurant in Chongqing were also infected with the virus, according to local media reports.

Although unmanned delivery services existed before the epidemic, the outbreak has “promoted [its] popularity”, according to Yang Xu, a senior analyst at research firm Analysys.