Walmart kick starting a $1 Trillion Driverless Delivery Market, will up the stakes in the grocery wars in 2020, by using Nuro’s driverless technology to deliver customers’ orders.
In 2020, the autonomous delivery vehicles will begin a pilot program, carrying delivery orders for select customers in Houston who opt-in to the offering.
To spearhead the initiative, the retail giant announced a partnership with Mountain View, California-based robotics company Nuro, to test its custom-built R2 electric vehicles that operate without passengers. The program will also use Toyota Priuses powered by Nuro’s self-driving software and hardware.
In recent years, Walmart has focused on expanding its popular Grocery Pickup and Delivery Service — in the process stiffening its challenge to Amazon. Just recently, the company’s Whole Foods and Fresh brands started offering free delivery, in an effort to boost grocery sales.
By year-end, the retailer will offer online grocery pickup in 3,100 locations with delivery across 1,600 stores. Walmart also now employs 50,000 personal shoppers for its online grocery business.
Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. It also owns and operates Sam’s Club retail warehouses. As of October 31, 2019, the retailer has 11,438 stores and clubs in 27 countries, operating under 55 different names. The company operates under the name Walmart in the United States and Canada, as Walmart de México y Centroamérica in Mexico and Central America, as Asda in the United Kingdom, as the Seiyu Group in Japan, and as Best Price in India. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Chile, Canada, and South Africa.
The giant retailer is the world’s largest company by revenue, with US$514.405 billion, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2019. It is also the largest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees.
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