Walmart is bringing drone deliveries to another 100 stores

Toward the end of last week, alongside an introduction to its generative-AI shopping assistant Sparky and the launch of a new campaign featuring “White Lotus” star Walton Goggins, Walmart announced that it will expand its drone delivery service in five new cities across five states. 

The retailer said that it’s made a whopping 150,000 drone deliveries since launching the service in 2021, though the new expansion — in partnership with Alphabet’s drone company Wing — will massively boost the offering. According to the statement, millions of customers in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa will now be able to look to the skies for their latest grocery deliveries.

Established to deliver smaller orders in shorter time frames, the current service reportedly has an average delivery window of just 19 minutes, and Walmart’s growing drone fleet clearly shows where the big-box giant’s ambitions lie, as it works hard to continue growing its online shopping business. However, 100 stores represents only ~2% of Walmart’s stores in the US, suggesting it might not move the needle immediately.

In its last fiscal year, online sales at Walmart hit $79.3 billion in the US alone, or 17% of overall US sales, while the international figure hovered just short of the $30 billion mark, or roughly 24% of the total figure. Though the company’s e-commerce arm has grown a lot in the postpandemic era and became profitable for the first time in Q1 2026, Walmart’s efforts to look a little more like Amazon haven’t stopped it from finally slipping behind Bezos’ behemoth on quarterly revenues earlier this year.

Further reading: Drone swarms are coming