Five on Friday: Wing, Beta and Joby
In US cities with over 1m people, 22% of land in the city centre is used for parking, according to Parking Reform Network.
But that could begin to change, at least in the parking areas of some Walmart stores.
This week the multinational retailer announced an expansion of its drone delivery service in partnership with Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent Alphabet.
On Thursday, the pair announced plans to roll out drone delivery to more than 100 Walmart stores in five new cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando and Tampa. Walmart is also adding new stores to its existing market in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where it has operated with Wing since Autumn 2023.
The drones take off and land in fenced-off areas of Walmart parking lots and require at least two qualified personnel per site.
“As we look ahead, drone delivery will remain a key part of our commitment to redefining retail,” said Greg Cathey, senior vice president, Walmart US Transformation and Innovation. “This expansion of our drone delivery service marks a significant milestone in that journey.”
The expansion represents an almost five-fold increase on the previous operation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Today that operation sees Wing and Walmart complete thousands of weekly deliveries, with an average fulfilment time of under 19 minutes.
“We’re decidedly out of the pilot and trial phase and into scaling up this business,” said Wing CEO Adam Woodworth.
“We figured out how the expansion worked out and looked in DFW, and now we’re sort of copy-pasting that across more markets.”
Woodworth did not comment on Wing’s profitability. However, he said the company is focused on how to scale its deliveries without incurring large hikes in expenditure.
The big challenge – for Wing and every drone delivery firm – is growing the number of aircraft and flights without adding more staff to oversee operations. Profit margins are already relatively tight.
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