Alphabet-owned drone delivery company Wing began flying Walmart orders to homes around Memphis, Tennessee, on November 10, 2026, according to DroneXL. The service launched from three Supercenters — in Bartlett and Cordova, Tennessee, and West Memphis, Arkansas — reaching tens of thousands of homes within flying range of those stores. Orders placed through the Wing or Walmart apps are delivered free of charge, with deliveries taking as little as 30 minutes.
Memphis is Wing's sixth US metro area carrying Walmart deliveries and the first of seven cities the companies announced back in June to actually go live. Each drone can carry up to 2.75 pounds per flight, cruising at 150 to 200 feet and up to 60 miles per hour before descending to hover around 23 feet and lowering the package to the ground on a tether.
How does a delivery drone actually drop off a package?
Wing's aircraft don't land in customers' yards. Instead, the drone flies to a GPS-marked delivery point, slows to a hover roughly 23 feet above the ground, and lowers the package on a tether that retracts once the box touches down. The drone never comes close to the ground itself, which lets it operate over fences, gardens and other obstacles that would stop a wheeled delivery robot. The weight limit of 2.75 pounds rules out large grocery hauls, but covers the kind of small, urgent purchases — a forgotten ingredient, medicine, a phone charger — that benefit most from a 30-minute delivery window.
Why does the Memphis timing matter?
Amazon has publicly committed to launching its own Prime Air drone service in Memphis but currently lists the city as "coming soon" with no firm date, giving Wing a head start in a market both companies have targeted. Amazon has previously charged $4.99 for Prime members and $9.99 for non-members on five-pound drone deliveries in other cities, a pricing structure Wing is undercutting in Memphis by making deliveries free for now.
The free pricing suggests Walmart and Wing are prioritizing adoption over near-term revenue as the service establishes itself against Amazon, DoorDash's delivery-robot and drone efforts, and Zipline, which separately expanded its own Walmart drone partnership to roughly 300 stores earlier this month. With six metro areas now live and six more cities already announced, Wing's Memphis launch is as much a competitive marker against Amazon as it is a service expansion — proof that a drone network can reach a contested market first, even if the economics of free delivery aren't built to last.