Amazon has struck a strategic global supply agreement with AutoStore to step up investment in robotics and automated fulfilment.
The deal establishes a framework for AutoStore to supply its warehouse automation products and solutions to Amazon around the world, the Norwegian technology group confirmed on Thursday.
However, AutoStore stressed that the agreement does not currently contain any purchasing commitments, meaning Amazon has not disclosed how many systems it could ultimately deploy or how much the partnership could be worth.
The tie-up represents a significant potential customer win for AutoStore, which operates around 2,000 automated systems across 68 countries.
Its technology centres around dense, cube-based storage grids, where robots move across the top of the system to retrieve product-filled bins and deliver them to picking stations.
The agreement comes as Amazon continues to make robotics a central part of its efforts to make deliveries faster and lower the cost of fulfilment.
Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy revealed earlier this year that Amazon now has more than one million robots operating across its fulfilment centres, carrying out tasks spanning picking, stowing, sorting and moving goods around its warehouses.
Jassy said it remained in the “early stages” of how it intended to use robotics, with the business continuing to invest in new robot formats, greater intelligence and a wider variety of use cases.
The AutoStore deal therefore gives Amazon access to an established third-party automation platform alongside the vast portfolio of warehouse robotics technology it has developed internally.
Reports earlier this year had already suggested the two businesses were deepening their relationship. In February it was reported that Amazon was preparing an initiative that could eventually allow it to install AutoStore systems itself from 2027, although the claims were based on unnamed industry sources and neither company commented at the time.
AutoStore systems were also being considered for Amazon micro-fulfilment projects as the retailer experiments with increasingly localised fulfilment models.
AutoStore unveiled the Amazon agreement alongside a strong set of second-quarter results.
Revenue jumped 43 per cent year on year to £143m during the quarter, while order intake climbed 45 per cent to a record £162m. Its order backlog reached £444m.
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