Warehouse robotics vendor Symbotic is deepening its tight relationship with mega-retailer Walmart, announcing today that it has agreed to acquire Walmart’s Advanced Systems and Robotics business for $200 million and operate it to deliver $520 million worth of automated microfulfillment systems in Walmart’s own stores.
Under terms of the deal, Symbotic will build a system that automates Walmart’s Accelerated Pickup and Delivery centers (APDs), with an initial order covering hundreds of stores and adding an estimated $5 billion to Symbotic’s future backlog for building the robots.
Walmart’s APDs are micro-fulfillment centers located at its retail stores that can fulfill e-commerce orders by using store inventory to enable buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) sales. Those sales add up to a large number, since Walmart’s store-fulfilled deliveries grew nearly 50% year-over-year, surpassing a $2.5 billion monthly run rate, during its quarter ended October 31, 2024. And it could grow even larger, since approximately 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of Walmart’s more than 4,600 stores.
Wilmington, Massachusetts-based Symbotic is a publicly traded company with a large ownership stake held by Walmart itself and by logistics technology investor SoftBank. Symbotic has been developing its automated fulfillment system in Walmart DCs since 2017, and landed a deal in 2021 to install those platforms in more than half of Walmart’s DCs. In 2022, Walmart expanded that order to include all 42 of its regional DCs.
Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart said that Symbotic will now engage in a development program funded by Walmart to enhance current online pickup and delivery fulfillment systems as well as to design new systems to meet the needs of customers. If performance criteria are achieved, Walmart is committed to purchasing and deploying systems for 400 APDs at stores over a multi-year period, with an option to add additional APDs in the coming years.
“This is a highly strategic transaction for Symbotic as we expand upon our long-term relationship with Walmart and broaden our product offering beyond the traditional warehouse to eCommerce settings for last mile delivery,” Rick Cohen, the chairman and CEO of Symbotic, said in a release.
