Alibaba drones fly over Beijing as Amazon pleads for US tests

Shanghai

CHINESE e-commerce giant Alibaba on Wednesday tested its first drone delivery service, promising to whisk ginger tea to customers within an hour despite tight controls on airspace.

Alibaba's flagship consumer-to-consumer marketplace Taobao, estimated to hold more than 90 per cent of the Chinese market for such transactions, showed off a photo of a black and silver drone with helicopter-like propellers carrying a white box to launch the service.

But the option is confined to just three days and a few areas of three Chinese mega-cities - the capital Beijing, commercial hub Shanghai and Guangzhou in the south - and applies only to one brand of tea from one particular ven…