Wing to expand drone delivery to 150 more Walmart stores

Wing is significantly scaling its drone-delivery partnership with retail partner Walmart by adding an additional 150 stores to its network. The companies announced the expansion on Sunday, confirming that the rollout of the on-demand service will occur throughout this year and continue into 2027. Once the expansion is complete, Wing will operate from more than 270 Walmart stores, representing a significant increase in its retail footprint. The expansion marks a major commercial milestone for Wing, which was founded as Google X, Alphabet’s innovation lab, and now operates as a subsidiary of Alphabet alongside delivery partner DoorDash.

The expansion suggests that customers are using Wing’s drone-delivery service enough to warrant growth. According to company data, Wing’s top 25% of customers use the drone-delivery service three times a week. To support this growing volume, Wing is integrating new hardware into its fleet, including aircraft capable of carrying a five-pound payload. Heather Rivera, Wing’s Chief Business Officer, noted that “volume is definitely powering our flywheel”—referring to a business strategy term for self-reinforcing growth. Rivera, who was brought in to scale the business, expressed excitement about her role, stating that scaling the business is exactly what she was brought in to do.

To reach its goal of serving about 10% of the U.S. population, Wing plans to use varied scaling approaches. Rivera stated that Wing will likely try a couple of different approaches to scaling its operations, such as clustering store openings. This builds on the companies’ initial 2023 partnership, which began with a pilot program at two stores in the Dallas metro area that reached about 60,000 homes. The program later grew to 18 Walmart Supercenters in Dallas-Fort Worth and recently expanded to stores in Atlanta, establishing a foundation for the broader rollout.

Under the current expansion, Wing will launch in Houston on January 15, following plans shared in June 2025 to launch in Houston, Orlando, Tampa, and Charlotte. Once the expansion is fully realized, the drone-delivery service will operate across several major U.S. locations, including:

• Houston
• Orlando
• Tampa
• Charlotte
• Los Angeles
• St. Louis
• Cincinnati
• Miami

Why it matters

The expansion of the drone-delivery service to 150 additional Walmart stores marks a significant scaling effort for Wing, which aims to serve about 10% of the U.S. population once the expansion is complete.