UPS's drone empire is rapidly expanding.
On Monday, the package giant established itself yet again as America's leader in drone deliveries with the announcement of four new customers — including its first retail customer, CVS Health.
"We're doing this in a pragmatic way," Bala Ganesh, vice president of UPS Advanced Technology Group, told Business Insider.
"We're first growing the portion of the business that has an approved regulatory framework – this is revenue-generating work in support of high-demand, value-added, critical instant delivery solutions on hospital campuses," Ganesh added.
Ganesh has long emphasized the importance of developing sustainable business cases around drone deliveries — meaning, revenue-generating businesses rather than flashy, short-term drone stunts. But the CVS partnership will be merely exploratory to start.
"Our project with CVS represents a big step forward to apply our learnings on the hospital campus setting to customers' homes," Ganesh said. "We will create new logistics and air delivery solutions no one has considered."
UPS announced earlier this month that it was the first drone company to score nationwide approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. That move raised eyebrows — showing that drone deliveries are commercially feasible even under rigorous regulations.
Its rivals have been quickly moving to match UPS's might.
On Oct. 18, Wing, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, made its first commercial drone deliveries. Wing also has FAA certification. But the scope of its operation is limited to a town called Christiansburg, Virginia.
Wing has partnered with FedEx Express and Walgreens to deliver goods to customers' homes in the Southwest Virginia town, about 210 miles away from the state capital Richmond.
Meanwhile, Amazon has pledged to take its Prime Air drone-delivery service to the real-world this year. At a September event, Amazon's Worldwide Consumer chief Jeff Wilke said its latest drone model would be fulfilling orders "in months."
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