Walmart Expands Drone Delivery as Amazon Struggles to Keep Pace
Walmart and Amazon’s drone delivery ambitions seem to be flying in opposite directions.
Walmart‘s on-demand drone delivery partnership with Wing will enable the mass merchant to reach 60,000 more households when the service launches at two stores in the coming months.
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A Walmart Supercenter in Frisco, Texas, will be the first to launch the Wing delivery capabilities, joining its existing network of 11 drone hubs already operating in the Dallas area. A second nearby Walmart store is set to launch before the end of the calendar year.
“Working with Wing directly aligns with our passion for finding innovative and eco-friendly last-mile delivery solutions to get customers the items they want, when they want them,” wrote Prathibha Rajashekhar, senior vice president, innovation and automation, Walmart U.S. in a blog post. “With drones that can fly beyond visual line of sight, we’re able to unlock on-demand delivery for customers living within an approximate six-mile range of the stores that offer the service.”
Walmart currently offers drone deliveries from 11 stores in eight Texas municipalities, including Dallas, Garland, Murphy, Plano, Richardson, Mesquite, Rowlett and The Colony. It worked with DroneUp to introduce drone deliveries in the Lone Star state last year, as well as from a handful of stores in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Utah and Virginia. Walmart also offers delivery at a pilot location in Fayetteville, N.C. using Flytrex automated drones.
Walmart claims it has completed more than 10,000 deliveries since 2021 from 36 stores in seven states.
Customers can pay $3.99 to use the Wing service between 10:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. six days a week except for Wednesday for orders weighing no more than 10 pounds.
Customers will be able to order items like household essentials, over-the-counter medicines and grocery staples.
The Wing app will tell customers if their address is within the drone delivery range.
Investments in the delivery drone sector are poised to rise in the years ahead. The global delivery drones market size is anticipated to reach $10.47 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. The market is projected to expand at a combined annual growth rate of 42.6 percent per year through 2030, from the currently estimated $873.4 million.
Grand View said the market has evolved from the initial generation of drones and their basic controls and remote-controlled aircraft, to the latest “generation 7” drones with advanced features, such as 3D robotics, gimbals (the mounting systems that typically hold the camera), high-quality video recording, artificial intelligence (AI), safety modes, increased carrying capacity and more.
When accounting for the three components of the delivery drone market—hardware, software and services—the services segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 49 percent from 2023 to 2030 owing to the growing demand for efficient and fast last-mile delivery solutions, particularly in urban areas, Grand View said.
While Walmart seems to be successfully expanding its drone program, Amazon appears to have hit a rough patch.
On top of layoffs and government regulations hampering Amazon’s ability to scale the Prime Air drone delivery service, two high-profile team members have recently left the division.
Jim Mullin, Prime Air’s chief pilot, left Amazon in July according to his LinkedIn profile. Mullin oversaw operations in Oregon, California and Texas. Robert Dreer, who reported to Mullin and was responsible for Prime Air’s test operations, departed in August for a role at electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft startup Opener.
Both employees were based at Prime Air’s main site in Pendleton, Ore.
“Hundreds” of drone deliveries were executed at two of Amazon’s launch sites in Lockeford, Calif., and College Station, Texas, well short of the projected 10,000 goal for 2023, CNBC reported in March.
“So far, thousands of customers have signed up and we’ve delivered hundreds of packages to customers in the areas,” said Simone Griffin, an Amazon spokesperson. “We’re constantly working to expand deliveries to more customers.”
A drone was destroyed during an emergency landing in a field on June 21 during tests at the Pendleton site, according to a federal crash report viewed by CNBC that didn’t list any injuries resulting from the incident.
Amazon doesn’t have permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly over roadways, unlike Walmart delivery partners including Wing, Flytrex and DroneUp.
At the beginning of the year, Amazon started durability and reliability (D&R) testing to comply with the FAA, which requires Prime Air to complete several hundred flying hours without any incidents.
The company is in the process of completing D&R testing for its current drone model, the MK27-2. It will have to undergo the same regulatory process for its next-generation version, the MK30, which Amazon expects to launch next year.
