LAHORE: Ride-hailing and last-mile delivery platform Careem Thursday flirted with the idea of doing drone deliveries and dropped a teaser informing customers that they could be receiving their food orders via drones if they ordered via the Careem Superapp.
Ready for the first ever Food Drone Delivery by a Pakistani food delivery app?
Order #KhanaHungamaDeals under Rs. 499 today & who knows we might surprise you with a drone delivery. 😉
*Valid in Karachi & Lahore where our food delivery services are available
*Other T&Cs apply pic.twitter.com/NKfe2HtpUr— Careem Pakistan (@CareemPAK) June 10, 2021
In a statement, Careem told Profit that exercise was a pilot with learnings for the platform to decide if it could be scaled to the next level.
Careem said that the pilot project of ordering via drone deliveries took place for one day with an extremely limited number of customers and distance covered. “There have been a lot of learnings for us if the company wants to scale up,” the statement read.
“Once we have concluded the feasibility and are absolutely confident to scale up this project to the next stage, we aim to procure all necessary regulatory approvals/permissions as per law, if required,” Careem said.
“Careem’s purpose is to simplify and improve lives by means of effective technology and our brand does not shy away from doing things creatively and standing out. Our teams are constantly innovating and experimenting with new ways to inspire and be of service towards our Customers; the drone delivery pilot is one such example,” the statement added.
Drones are the next iteration in the food delivery category and Careem’s parent, Uber is also in the process of testing drones for food deliveries on its UberEats platform. In 2020, Amazon also received approval of operating a fleet of drones for deliveries.
Likewise, Google’s parent company Alphabet is seeing a boom in drone deliveries for its company Wing which has partnered with various shops in select states in the US and Australia.
