Dive Brief:
- Walmart will expand its drone delivery coverage with Wing to 150 U.S. stores over the next year, reaching more than 40 million potential customers near those locations, the companies announced Sunday.
- The partnership will continue to scale further, with plans for the drone delivery service to cover over 270 Walmart locations in 2027. Walmart has roughly 4,600 U.S. store locations overall.
- The expansion plans include stores in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Miami, with other locations to be announced at a later date. “The question is no longer if Wing and Walmart will deliver to your city, it’s when," the announcement said.
Dive Insight:
The Wing expansion helps Walmart in its fast shipping race with rival Amazon — which has its own drone delivery capabilities — while satiating consumer demand for deliveries in 30 minutes or less.
The growth of Walmart and Wing's partnership builds on existing drone delivery operations in Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, along with planned launches in Houston, Orlando and Tampa in Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina. Delivery volume has increased in turn, tripling in the past six months, per the announcement.
"Whether it’s a last-minute ingredient for dinner, a must-have charger for a phone, or a late-night essential for a busy family, the strong adoption we’ve seen confirms that this is the future of convenience,” Greg Cathey, Walmart's senior vice president of digital fulfillment transformation, said in the announcement.
Drones from Wing, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, can fly up to 60 miles per hour and travel up to 12 miles round trip, per its website. The drones ferry goods weighing up to five pounds from stores to destination addresses. They are designed to carry items typically requested for rapid delivery, such as a carton of eggs or a loaf of bread.
Walmart customers can check whether Wing drone delivery is available at their location by entering their address in Wing's app or website.
Walmart and Wing's momentum in the space comes despite various challenges drone delivery operators have faced in scaling service over the years, from regulatory hurdles to noise complaints. The Federal Aviation Administration aims to launch a clearer pathway to approve longer-distance drone operations, which stakeholders say could benefit the industry.
