Walmart is set to branch out drone deliveries to five US states and over 100 Walmart stores, with the help of its partner, drone delivery app Wing. The supermarket brand has been looking to expand its drone delivery service for several years, which has included partnerships with services such as DroneUp and Zipline.
As more drones take to the sky, competition has increased. Walmart’s recent expansion could be seen as an attempt to compete with Prime Air, Amazon’s drone delivery service.
Likewise, the potential for drone delivery services remain significant, particularly on a large scale.
Walmart Branches Out Drone Deliveries
Walmart announced on Thursday that it will be rolling out drone delivery to more than 100 stores, with the help of Wing, its partner and drone delivery app. The new delivery parameters will cover five new cities, and total Walmart’s drone delivery reach to five states in total. These states are Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas.
Likewise, Walmart is adding Wing’s drone deliveries to its existing operation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Wing is not the only drone delivery company that Walmart has worked with. The supermarket chain started home delivery services with Zipline back in April.
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Wing, which is owned by Alphabet, originally partnered with Walmart back in 2023. The two companies launched a pilot program in the Dallas metropolitan area in order to test drone delivery in two Walmart stores. The program reached about 60,000 homes.
An Expanding Confidence in Drone Deliveries
Through this expansion, Walmart has signaled that it is confident in the potential of drone deliveries. Greg Cathey, senior vice president of Walmart’s US Transformation and Innovation Department, has stated that drone delivery remains a key element of the company’s “commitment to redefining retail.”
Likewise, the company’s partnership with Wing will allow customers to receive their drone-delivered orders in less than thirty minutes, it has said. Since its original partnership with Walmart, Wing has grown significantly, now providing services to eighteen Walmart Supercenters in Dallas-Fort Worth.
This most recent collaboration is a nearly five-fold increase of Wing’s operations with Walmart. The company also partnered with food delivery service DoorDash back in 2022.
The Potential of Drone Deliveries in the US
According to Cathey, Walmart stores have over 150,000 items in a location. And over 50% of those items are eligible to be delivered by drones, making the potential for quick and efficient deliveries to consumers, while retaining a low price, a reachable ceiling.
Walmart is not the only company to invest heavily in drone deliveries. Amazon also has its own drone delivery service, Prime Air, although the service was temporarily suspended earlier this year due to a fault with the drone’s altitude sensor. Prime Air service has since resumed.
The potential for the industry is obvious, as consumers now naturally gravitate towards speedy and cheap delivery options. When speaking with logistics experts, Tech.co found that the biggest remaining block to full-scale drone operations is US legislation. Currently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) only authorizes operations beyond visual line of sight, and on a case by case basis, with waivers.
