Walmart Made 6K Drone Deliveries in 2022 as Concept Gains Airspeed

Walmart is touting an early lead in drone deliveries as the skies begin slowly filling with retail parcels.

In a Thursday (Jan. 5) update and accompanying infographic, Walmart said it completed over 6,000 drone deliveries in 2022 from 36 U.S. stores in seven states, besting its May 2022 announcement that the retailer is “expanding our DroneUp delivery network to 34 sites by the end the year, providing the potential to reach 4 million U.S. households across six states — Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. This provides us the ability to deliver over 1 million packages by drone in a year.”

With a 10-pound weight limit, the UAVs supplied by partner DroneUp, Walmart said “customer favorites delivered by drones are Great Value Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, 2lb Bag of Lemons, Rotisserie Chicken, Red Bull and Bounty Paper Towels” thus far.

Read: Walmart Ups Drone Delivery Comp With Amazon, Expands Program to 6 States

DroneUp followed Walmart’s May announcement with one of its own, saying in a blog post that “we’ve seen a positive response from Walmart’s customers that have used the service. In fact, while Walmart initially thought customers would use the service for emergency items, we’re finding they use it for its sheer convenience, like a quick fix for a weeknight meal. Case in point: The top-selling item at one of our current hubs is Hamburger Helper.”

Ironically, Amazon is trailing despite its founder owning an operational space flight company (Blue Origin). The eCommerce leader unveiled its new Prime Air drone design — the MK30 — in a November blog post, saying its “increased range, expanded temperature tolerance, safety-critical features, and new capability to fly in light rain will enable customers to choose drone delivery more often.”

Prime Air Primed for Takeoff

In June, Amazon announced the first locations to be getting Amazon Prime Air drone deliveries, including Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas. Those sites rely on the smaller MK27-2 drone that handles packages of 5 pounds or less. The MK30 is for heavier loads.

Drone delivery went from science fiction to aero-commerce fact in about six years, from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos talking about the idea during a 2013 appearance on “60 Minutes” to the first-ever delivery — made by Google parent Alphabet’s Wing drone — in West Virginia in 2019.

On December 22, Prime Air made its first drone deliveries in California and Texas. Amazon Vice President Prime Air at Amazon David Carbon wrote on LinkedIn: “First deliveries from our new sites in TX and CA. Couldn’t be prouder of the amazing people that make up Prime Air. These are careful first steps that we will turn into giant leaps for our customers over the next number of years.”

Read: Amazon Answers Walmart’s Drone Push With Limited Launch Later This Year

Also in December, Wing talked up its new Remote Operations Center in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, saying in a separate blog post that in 2022 its largest delivery operation in Logan, Australia, “a service area of roughly 70,000 people, there were days in 2022 when we made over 1,000 deliveries — about one delivery every 25 seconds.”

Delivery Drones to the Rescue

The pandemic accelerated drone delivery just as it did other contactless forms of commerce. In April 2020, CVS Health Corp. and the United Parcel Service’s (UPS) UPS Flight Forward unit partnered for prescription delivery by drone in The Villages in central Florida, the largest retirement community in the U.S. with roughly 135,000 residents.

Read: Zipline Gets FAA Approval for Drone Delivery of Healthcare Products

Using the M2 drone system from Matternet, former UPS chief strategy and transformation officer Scott Price said in a subsequent blog post that “Our new drone delivery service will help CVS provide safe and efficient deliveries of medicines to this large retirement community, enabling residents to receive medications without leaving their homes.”

For its part, FedEx has partnered with Elroy Air, saying in a March 2022 press release, “The exponential growth of e-commerce has accelerated the demand for reliable, efficient transportation and logistics solutions throughout all stages of the supply chain.”

Additionally, PYMNTS reported in June that “U.S. regulators have approved Zipline International to make drone-based healthcare product deliveries from its headquarters in North Carolina.”

See: UPS Uses Drones To Deliver Prescriptions

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