Walmart's Delivery Drones Are Coming To More States
Walmart is expanding drone deliveries across six states in partnership with the Virginia-based drone delivery startup, DroneUp. The retail giant has run various drone delivery pilots over the past couple of years with three drone operators across various locations. The company worked with Flytrex to deliver groceries and household products in Fayetteville, North Carolina and launched a pilot project with California-based Zipline to deliver health and wellness products in Pea Ridge, Arkansas. The company has also tested delivering at-home Covid-19 test kits with Quest Diagnostics and DroneUp in Las Vegas and Cheektowaga, New York.
Walmart started its first drone delivery operations with DroneUp last year in Farmington, Arkansas. The company also announced that two other towns in the state — Rogers and Bentonville — will also be eligible for the service in the near future. Walmart is also investing heavily in drone deliveries, having picked up a significant equity stake in DroneUp last year as part of its plans to compete with the likes of Amazon and Google. While Amazon's Prime Air Deliveries is still struggling to get off the ground, Google has been expanding its Wing drone delivery footprint across the country and around the world.
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By the end of this year, Walmart expects to expand its drone delivery service to include at least 34 sites across Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. In a press release on Tuesday, the company said that the expansion will enable up to 4 million households in these states to order various products to be delivered by drones. As an example of eligible drone delivery items, Walmart says everything from
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