Walmart Expands Drone Delivery to 150 More Stores
▼ Summary
– Wing, an Alphabet-owned company, is expanding its drone delivery partnership with Walmart to 150 more locations in 2026, including four new cities.
– The partnership aims to establish a network of 270 Walmart stores with Wing drone delivery by 2027, building on current operations at approximately 27 stores.
– The expansion represents a significant scaling of drone delivery, which proponents argue reduces the need for polluting trucks in last-mile logistics.
– Wing reports growing demand, with its top customers ordering frequently and overall deliveries tripling in the last six months.
– Wing’s drones can carry up to 5 pounds, travel 12 miles round trip at 65 mph, and have completed 750,000 deliveries since the company’s inception.
Walmart is significantly scaling its drone delivery network through an expanded partnership with Wing, a company owned by Alphabet. This year, the service will launch at 150 additional Walmart stores, introducing drone deliveries to four major new metropolitan areas: Los Angeles, St. Louis, Miami, and Cincinnati. This move marks a major step toward making aerial delivery a more common retail experience.
The expansion builds on momentum from last year, when the companies announced plans to add the service to 100 stores in cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Houston. Operations are already live at several locations in Atlanta, as well as in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Arkansas. Currently, drone delivery is active at about 27 Walmart stores. With this latest announcement, the ambitious target is to establish a network of 270 Walmart locations offering Wing drone delivery by 2027.
Achieving this timeline would transform what has been a relatively limited pilot program into a widespread commercial service. Proponents of drone delivery argue that using small, electric aircraft for the final leg of a delivery can reduce the number of traditional, gas-powered trucks on the road, potentially cutting emissions and congestion. This environmental and efficiency argument parallels the case made by companies deploying sidewalk robots for food delivery in urban areas.
Wing reports that interest in its service is climbing alongside its geographic reach. The company notes that its most active customers are placing orders frequently, with the top quarter averaging three deliveries per week. Overall, delivery volume has reportedly tripled in the past six months.
The technology behind the service continues to evolve. Wing’s primary drone model can carry packages weighing up to 2.5 pounds, while newer versions double that capacity to 5 pounds. These aircraft are designed for efficiency, with batteries supporting a 12-mile round trip and a cruising speed of 65 miles per hour. The delivery process involves drones using tethers and hooks to retrieve packages from specialized pads in Walmart parking lots before flying to a customer’s address and gently lowering the order into their yard.
Since commencing operations over a decade ago, Wing’s drones have completed more than 750,000 commercial deliveries. The company also operates a delivery service for DoorDash in select markets, including Dallas and Charlotte, demonstrating the broader applicability of its aerial logistics system.
(Source: The Verge)
