Walmart and Wing Expand Drone Delivery to Five More US Cities

Walmart and Wing, Alphabet’s on-demand drone delivery company, are significantly expanding their partnership, bringing drone delivery services to five new major US cities. This expansion marks a major step forward for both companies in the commercial drone delivery space.

The new cities included in this rollout are Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. In addition to these new markets, Walmart is also expanding Wing drone deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where the service has already been piloted.

This expansion reflects Walmart’s increasing confidence in the potential of drone delivery. Greg Cathey, Senior Vice President of U.S. Transformation and Innovation at Walmart, emphasized the importance of drone delivery in the company’s strategy. He stated that it would remain a key part of their commitment to redefining retail and enhancing customer convenience.

“We’re pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before,” Cathey said in a blog post (Source: Walmart Corporate News) announcing the expansion.

For Wing, this expansion represents a significant transition from an Alphabet X graduate to a full-fledged commercial enterprise. The partnership with Walmart began in 2023 with a pilot program at two stores in the Dallas metro area, reaching approximately 60,000 homes. This initial pilot has since grown to encompass 18 Walmart Supercenters in the Dallas-Fort Worth region.

The current expansion represents a nearly five-fold increase in Wing’s operational scale with Walmart.

Wing CEO Adam Woodworth highlighted the significance of this expansion, stating, “We’re decidedly out of the pilot and trial phase and into scaling up this business. We’ve always been the type of company that wants to do something well and stay focused. And so this is the next big bite at the apple. It’s a much bigger bite than we’ve taken before.”

The success of the pilot program in Dallas-Fort Worth played a crucial role in shaping Wing’s retail drone delivery strategy. According to Woodworth, the company is now leveraging the insights gained from that experience to expand into new markets. “We figured out how the expansion worked out and looked in DFW, and now we’re sort of copy-pasting that across more markets,” he added.

While Woodworth declined to comment on Wing’s current profitability, he emphasized the company’s focus on scaling deliveries while maintaining cost efficiency. Wing’s strategy centers on utilizing small, lightweight, automated, and low-cost drones. The company is focused on optimizing the balance between scaling the number of drones and flights without proportionally increasing personnel costs.

In addition to its partnership with Walmart, Wing is also expanding its presence in the restaurant food delivery sector through its collaboration with DoorDash. The two companies have launched drone delivery services in Australia, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Charlotte (Source: TechCrunch) (Source: Wing Official News).