Walmart announced Thursday that it plans to expand its drone delivery services to five additional cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Houston, and Orlando and Tampa, Fla. It already makes deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and in northwest Arkansas, near its Bentonville headquarters.
Walmart said it has completed more than 150,000 successful drone deliveries since 2021, though it did not specify how many of those deliveries have taken place within the last year. Drone technology, while of major interest to both the retail giant and its competitor Amazon, has been slow moving in terms of scaling up adoption. Last summer, Walmart grounded drones in Salt Lake City, Tampa and Phoenix, citing a desire to hone in on the Dallas-Forth Worth metro area. Those sites were operated by ex-partner DroneUp.
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Nonetheless, both companies seem adamant about continued expansion. Amazon announced early this year that it would start applying for authorizations to test drones in the U.K., building on its momentum in Tolleson, Ariz., and College Station, Texas. It has also said it has plans to launch drone delivery in Italy, though hasn’t made any formal announcements about such an expansion.
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Greg Cathey, senior vice president of Walmart U.S. transformation and innovation, said the company will continue to invest in drone delivery, which can drop parcels at consumers’ residences within 30 minutes.
“As we look ahead, drone delivery will remain a key part of our commitment to redefining retail. We’re pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before,” Cathey said in a statement.
When a consumer places a drone-eligible delivery, they pinpoint where, exactly, the drone should deliver the package. Typically, that’s either in the front yard or the backyard of a home. The employees fulfilling the order then pack the items into a specific, drone-friendly box, which is sent into the sky at speeds of up to 65 miles per hour. Once the drone reaches the delivery destination, it lowers the parcel onto the ground for the consumer to collect from the designated pickup point. According to Wing, its average delivery time comes in at 19 minutes.
Wing is licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly six miles beyond visual line of sight. That designation, which means a human operator isn’t required to keep eyes on the drone at all times, means customers within a designated radius of 100 additional Walmart stores will soon be eligible for drone delivery on specific items. According to Walmart, some of the most popular items delivered by drones in existing markets include fruit, eggs, pet food and ice cream.
Walmart will service its newest drone delivery markets with partner Wing. The two companies first inked a partnership for a Dallas-Fort Worth pilot in 2023. At the time, Wing’s drones reached about 60,000 Texas homes; that figure has since expanded.
Adam Woodworth, chief executive officer of Wing, said expanding into further markets with an enterprise customer like Walmart marks forward movement for the start-up, which also counts DoorDash as one of its customers.
“This is real drone delivery at scale,” Woodworth said. “People all around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex have made drone delivery part of their normal shopping habits over the past year. Now we’re excited to share this ultra-fast delivery experience with millions more people across many more U.S. cities.”