Walmart is reportedly ending drone deliveries in three states, in a bid to focus primarily on providing the service in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area.
According to Axios, Walmart partner DroneUp is closing a combined 18 Walmart delivery hubs in Arizona, Utah and Florida, leaving 15 U.S. Walmart locations that still provide drone delivery services. Eleven of those remaining hubs are in Dallas, three are in Arkansas and one is in Virginia. The retail giant launched the nation’s first ever large-scale drone delivery operation in 2022, but is scaling back in the face of high costs, with DroneUp CEO Tom Walker telling Axios that it can cost the company as much as $30 to deliver a single package via drone. In the meantime, DroneUp — which is partly owned by Walmart — says it will work on developing drones with higher payload capacity and longer range.
The DFW area has been a proving ground for the budding drone delivery industry for years. Walmart first began experimenting with the service for a limited number of customers there in 2021, before expanding its offerings to cover nearly three-quarters of the region in early 2024, and adding partnerships with two other providers Zipline and Wing. The company also integrated a drone delivery option into its app for DFW customers in June of 2024.
