Fast Facts
- Amazon's long-promised (and even demonstrated) package delivery via drone, and now it's doubling down on it.
- The news comes from CEO Andy Jassy's latest annual shareholder letter.
Amazon.com (AMZN) is home to all sorts of products, and if you’re a Prime member or willing to pay for it per order, you can get those items delivered in record time. As part of the membership subscription, Prime users get access to fast, generally two-day shipping on most items, with one-day shipping available on certain things.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is pretty bullish on futuristic delivery methods, even ones that have been mocked in pop culture, like delivering through drones. In Jassy’s latest annual shareholder letter, the CEO writes that while Amazon’s drone delivery service — Prime Air — has been questioned by some, it’s “making substantial progress and we think of it as a very valuable future primitive capability.”
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“Drones will eventually allow us to deliver packages to customers in less than an hour,” he continues, noting that it won’t start off everywhere or for every package. Still, Amazon believes it will be a selling point in due time. He also writes that it could be a game-changer for perishable items, potentially from Amazon Fresh or even for Amazon Pharmacy, which delivers prescription medication and over-the-counter solutions.
The idea, though, is that in the beginning, a Prime Air drone could be dispatched from the delivery facility, travel, land safely, drop off the package, and return to base. He notes that it’s also a faster way of performing same-day delivery and getting the products to customers than the current solution.
Amazon
Currently, Amazon delivers using several vehicles, including all-electric custom Rivian vans, but also uses e-bikes and other methods depending on the service and how quickly it needs to arrive. It’s a recommitment from Amazon’s top brass, though in what could become the future of delivery, it’s still a bit far out.
The comments were part of a lengthy letter to shareholders in which Jassy also discussed the prospect of AI and other initiatives within Amazon. You can read the full shareholder letter from CEO Andy Jassy here.
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