McDonald’s Drones Could Deliver Your Big Mac For Under $1

Drone deliveries are an inevitability and food orders could land at your door faster than ever. | Source: / Grzegorz CzapskiShutterstock.com

• McDonald’s delivery service set to hit $4 billion in sales in 2019.
• Drone delivery is the next logical step for rapid food orders, a potential $100 billion business by 2030.
• Ark Invest analysts predict McDonald’s could deliver via drone for less than a dollar.

McDonald’s could soon deliver a Big Mac to you door via drone, for less than a dollar. That’s the analysis of Tasha Keeney at investment firm Ark.

‘McDelivery’ exploded in popularity this year. According to the latest McDonald’s earnings call, the fast food outlet receives ten delivery orders every second and expects $4 billion delivery sales by the end of 2019. Ark Invest now sees a future where Big Macs arrive at your doorstep by drone.

“McDonalds now gets 10 delivery orders per second – an estimated $4B business in 2019. Seems like food is a natural candidate for drone delivery. My estimate is over $100B in food related drone delivery service revenue by 2030 worldwide.”

McDonald’s drone delivery for a dollar

Combining previous Ark research into Amazon’s delivery drones, Keeney predicts that McDonald’s could deliver a Big Mac for less than a dollar. Drone delivery could prove 9-140x cheaper than current delivery alternatives, reshaping the entire landscape of delivery services.

“Accelerating the trend, drones should be able to deliver food for less than a dollar per order.”

McDonald’s delivery service is currently enabled by UberEats, which has plans to launch a drone service in San Diego by the end of the year.

Food delivery revolution

The entire fast food industry is in the midst of a revolution, with “cloud kitchens” now popping up across the US. As one investor pointed out on Twitter, a DoorDash cloud kitchen appeared almost overnight in California.

Cloud kitchens prepare restaurant food purely for delivery through apps like Deliveroo, Uber Eats and DoorDash. It cuts out the hassle of running a restaurant and puts delivery first. Chef Eric Greenspan explains:

“Delivery is the fastest growing market in restaurants. What started out as 10 percent of your sales is now 30 percent of your sales, and [the industry predicts] it will be 50 to 60 percent of a quick-serve restaurant’s sales within the next three to five years.”