Alphabet's Wing to pass 100,000 drone delivery milestone this week
Delivery drone company Wing will surpass 100,000 customer deliveries by the end of this week, the company said in a blog post.
Wing is an Alphabet subsidiary that develops technology for drone-based deliveries.
Of the deliveries Wing has made so far, more than half were completed over the past eight months in Logan, Australia, where it launched two years ago.
The deliveries in Logan have included 10,000 cups of coffee, 1,700 children's snack packs, 1,200 roast chickens, 2,700 sushi rolls, and 1,000 loaves of bread, Wing said.
During the first week of this month, customers living in Logan placed orders for 4,500 deliveries, which Wing said worked out to be one every 30 seconds during service hours. Logan residents were in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic during that week.
Wing's drones have a range of six miles -- 9.66 kilometres -- with the company saying it can provide deliveries weighing up to 1.2kg within six minutes once a drone has been deployed.
The company's drone delivery service is currently available in Logan, as well as Helsinki in Finland and Christiansburg in the United States.
Along with the Logan uptake, people living in Christianburg have said they enjoy the drone delivery service so far, according to a Virginia Tech survey. Of 800 residents that were surveyed, nearly 90% of them said they supported drone delivery.
While announcing the 100,000 delivery milestone, Wing also said it has plans to roll out its drone delivery in new cities in the coming months.
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