Walmart, a major U.S. retail chain, plans to automate 65% of its stores by 2026. Through this, it aims to reduce logistics costs by more than 20%.
According to major foreign media on the 4th (local time), Walmart announced this statement on the same day. This comes just days after announcing layoffs of over 2,000 employees primarily in warehouse logistics roles.
Walmart intends to enhance operational efficiency through increased investment in automation while actively responding to the expansion of the online market. For example, whereas employees previously manually transported products and delivered them to customers, autonomous forklifts will perform these tasks in the future. The company plans to compete with Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company, through store automation.
The exact scale of additional layoffs due to the supply chain automation Walmart is pursuing is unclear. Currently, Walmart operates more than 5,000 stores in the U.S. and employs over 1.7 million people. The company only stated that the workload for low-wage workers may decrease.
However, with logistics costs expected to decrease by about 20% by 2026 through automation, the company's profitability is anticipated to improve.
Walmart has invested heavily in automation systems to enable rapid online order processing. Previously, it acquired the grocery robotics company 'Alert Innovation.' The Alphabot developed by this company collects 800 products per hour, achieving ten times the performance compared to the 80 products collected per hour by employees. Additionally, Walmart has focused on e-commerce automation by reducing the online order processing steps from 12 to 5.
Furthermore, Walmart has continuously increased investments centered on automation services since the COVID-19 pandemic. Walmart's capital expenditures rose from $10.3 billion in 2020, when COVID-19 occurred, to $13.1 billion in 2021, and $16.9 billion in 2022.
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