Watch out, Google: THIS is the top drone delivery company of 2021

The top drone delivery company of 2021 is NOT Google-sister company Wing, despite the company having crossed an impressive 100,000 delivery milestone earlier this year. It’s certainly not Amazon, which reportedly experienced layoffs just this past August. The top drone delivery company of 2021 is Zipline.

That’s at least according to data fromHamburg, Germany-based drone market intelligence tracking company Drone Industry Insights, which analyzed 750 companies that are considered drone service providers providers.

The report broke out drone delivery companies specifically and found that the top drone delivery company of 2021 is Zipline. Here were the top three drone delivery companies of 2021, according to Drone Industry Insights:

1. Zipline
2. Wing (sister company of Google)
3. Matternet

While Wing this year crossed the significant100,000-delivery milestone, Zipline recently crossed the 200,000-delivery milestone, doubling Wing’s amount of drone deliveries made. Zipline also announced major U.S. expansion plans through a new partnership with Intermountain Healthcare in Utah.

The results almost entirely mirror the same results from DII’s 2020 ranking of the top drone delivery companies. In fact, this is the fourth year in a row that Zipline holds the top spot.

“With more than 13 million total miles flown and nearly 1.2 million products delivered (including about 200,000 commercial deliveries), Zipline is the benchmark among delivery DSPs,” according to DII.

The company’s work was initially in delivering blood to rural parts of developing countries in Africa. These days, the company’s growth plans include retail delivery, as shown by a partnership with Walmart signed earlier this year. Okeoma Moronu, Legal Counsel at Zipline, told The Drone Girl in an exclusive interview last month that the company also has plans to more than double this as it expands services in Ghana, and also launches in Nigeria, Japan and the United States over the next year. Though Zipline has already dipped its toes in the U.S. in the wake of coronavirus, when Zipline expanded its U.S. operations to include deliveries of PPE and other COVID-19 medical supplies to hospitals.

No. 2 drone delivery competitor Wing is almost entirely focused on retail deliveries and currently operates in Australia, Finland and the United States (its U.S. deliveries are primarily in Christiansburg, Virginia).  Beyond strictly drone deliveries, Wing has also developed an unmanned traffic management platform called Wing OpenSky app, which was made for both recreational and commercial drone pilots to enable tasks like showing where you legally can and cannot fly drones, allowing you to log flights and more. Wing was originally founded in 2012 as part of “X,” the Moonshot Factory, and is now a wholly owned Alphabet company and a sister company of Google Inc.

Of course, it’s been a huge year for Wing, too.  Earlier in October, Wing launched an interesting operating model for its drone delivery services by flying merchandise and food from the rooftop of the Grand Plaza Mall in Logan, Australia directly to customers’ homes. Also in October, Wing announced an expansion into Frisco, Texas, where it has partnered with Walgreens to conduct drone deliveries.

Position No. 3 went to Silicon Valley-based drone delivery group Matternet.

The Drone Service Provider Ranking 2021 Report also broke out the top three Remote Sensing Drone Service Providers. They are:

• Terra Drone (based in Japan)
• Aerodyne (based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
• Cyberhawk (based in the United Kingdom)

Will Zipline maintain its lead as a top drone delivery provider again in 2022? Will Amazon make a comeback? Can Wing use its big name to rise up in the ranks for next year? Leave your thoughts below!