Alphabet-owned drone delivery company, Wing, and retail giant Walmart announced Thursday a major expansion of their partnership, bringing drone deliveries to more than 100 Walmart stores across five additional U.S. cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. This latest rollout signifies an increased commitment by Walmart to integrating drone technology into its retail operations, intensifying the use of drones as part of the company’s ongoing effort to redefine convenience in retail.
Greg Cathey, Walmart’s senior vice president for U.S. Transformation and Innovation, emphasized drone delivery as central to Walmart’s pursuit of faster and more streamlined customer shopping experiences. “We’re pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before,” Cathey stated.
Wing first collaborated with Walmart in 2023 through a trial initiative launched at two Dallas-area stores, initially covering around 60,000 homes. The drone service subsequently expanded across 18 Walmart Supercenters in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. This new announcement will nearly quintuple Wing’s Walmart operations, significantly scaling the partnership from its pilot roots into a widespread commercial venture.
Wing CEO Adam Woodworth described the expansion as a pivotal moment for the business. “We’re decidedly out of the pilot and trial phase and into scaling up this business,” he stated. “We’ve always been the type of company that wants to do something well and stay focused. And this is the next big bite at the apple—it’s a much larger step forward than any we’ve taken before.”
Woodworth specifically credited learnings from the Dallas-Fort Worth operation for shaping the company’s growth strategy. “We figured out how the expansion worked in Dallas-Fort Worth, and now we’re essentially replicating that strategy in new markets,” he said.
Though Woodworth declined to confirm whether Wing had reached profitability or specify when the company might hit that milestone, he stressed the importance of managing scale while controlling costs. Wing aims to create a sustainable business model built around small, lightweight, automated drone aircraft. The company faces fixed operational expenses including flight operations and training, but Woodworth said that expanding the operating scale of drone deliveries helps to spread these costs.
“The more locations you operate in and the higher volume of flights you perform, the more efficiently you defray those fixed expenses,” he explained. He said Wing seeks to grow delivery operations significantly without adding a corresponding increase in personnel or resources.
In parallel to its retail partnership with Walmart, Wing continues exploring restaurant and food delivery ventures, most notably through its existing collaboration with food delivery giant DoorDash. Wing and DoorDash first teamed up in 2022 to initiate drone-delivered meals in Australia. Since then, they have brought similar services to the United States, scaling up operations in Dallas-Fort Worth and most recently beginning deliveries in Charlotte.
