Yandex's delivery robots may soon take to the streets of Yerevan. The company's local head, Aram Mkhitaryan, expressed hope that wheeled autonomous robots, already in use in other countries and designed for deliveries, will appear in the capital's streets in the near future.
Mkhitaryan did not specify exactly when the robots would be launched, but noted that Yandex typically introduces two to three new services per year, and this is one of those planned innovations. In addition, the Yandex Games platform is set to go live in Armenia in the coming days.
The company is also testing drone deliveries, but for now these are being conducted in another country in the region, not in Armenia.
Yandex has been operating in the Armenian market for ten years and currently offers about 13 services. More than 100,000 people earn income through the company's platforms, mainly in taxi, delivery, and food sectors. The total transaction volume of these services accounts for approximately 1.2-1.3 percent of Armenia's GDP, and Yandex Go continues to be the company's flagship service, combining taxis, food delivery, and other types of deliveries.
In effect, Yandex is preparing to introduce to Yerevan's streets a technology that has already become a reality in a number of countries. Although the arrival of delivery robots is still a matter of timing and management has not given a specific date, this move is a clear signal that the company sees growth potential here.
This is hardly surprising, given that the scale of Yandex's services is already comparable to a significant share of the country's GDP. This means such innovations are no longer a distant-future dream but a logical business step toward gradually changing the way the market operates.
