Wing told its followers on X on September 3 that it is making “thousands of deliveries to homes each day” and building the largest residential drone delivery network in the United States, five weeks after opening Greater Orlando with Walmart as its first Florida market. The post named no new store or date. It did put a daily rate, however rounded, on a program mostly described in lifetime totals and store counts.

The timing is the story. Two weeks earlier, Amazon promised Prime Air in nearly 500 US cities and towns by December 31, the loudest counterclaim yet to Wing’s “largest” language, and one that lands in Texas and Georgia metros Wing already serves.

Walmart’s Own Quarter Backs The Thousands-A-Day Figure

Walmart said on May 29 that it had passed one million drone deliveries, with just over 40 percent completed in the fiscal quarter ending April 30. That is more than 400,000 flights in 89 days, roughly 4,500 a day across Wing and Zipline, from 66 stores in four states.

So Wing’s “thousands” is arithmetic rather than marketing, as long as Wing carried most of that volume. Walmart does not break the million out by partner. Zipline flies Dallas-area and Arkansas stores; Wing flies Dallas-Fort Worth, metro Atlanta, Greater Houston, Charlotte, and since July, Central Florida. Wing’s own lifetime count, per its June newsroom post, is more than one million commercial deliveries, a global figure that includes Australia.

Walmart U.S. chief David Guggina gave the same count on the May 21 earnings call. Florida now makes five.

Amazon’s 500-City Map Is The Claim Wing Is Answering

Amazon announced on August 19 that Prime Air will reach nearly 500 US cities and towns by the end of 2026, up from 11 sites in seven states. Each site covers a circle of about 175 square miles (453 square kilometers), and every municipality inside it counts toward the total.

Wing counts differently. Its unit is the Walmart store: 66 flying across both of Walmart’s drone partners as of May, Orlando’s two since July, and a contract for more than 270 locations by 2027. Each hub holds up to 18 aircraft and serves a radius of about 6 miles (9.7 kilometers). Amazon’s volume figure, from Prime Air vice president David Carbon, is “hundreds of thousands” of packages this year. As DroneXL noted when the 500-city plan landed, a municipality count and a delivery count measure different things. A circle is also easier to draw than a hub is to permit.

Orlando Still Runs From Two Stores On A 2.5-Pound Payload

Wing’s Florida service launched July 29 from Walmart Supercenters in Apopka and Clermont, covering what the companies put at more than 50,000 homes, businesses, and apartment buildings. The aircraft flying there carries up to 2.5 pounds (1.1 kilograms) per trip, half the ceiling Wing says its larger drone will reach.

Three more stores were due “in the coming weeks”: Ocoee, a second Clermont location on US Highway 27, and Haines City. Wing’s Orlando service page still lists Apopka and Clermont as the only communities served, and neither company has announced the other three as live. DroneXL’s July 29 report has the launch details.

The next market is already meeting resistance. Spectrum News reported on August 19 that Wing was finalizing its initial Walmart sites around St. Louis after presentations to the City of Maplewood and the City of St. Charles, over objections from some Maplewood residents. It is the same fight DroneXL covered in North Carolina in June, one parking lot at a time.

DroneXL’s Take

“Largest” is the wrong contest. The number worth having is the one Wing dropped in as an afterthought: a rate. Amazon’s 500 cities is a map. Wing’s thousands a day is throughput, and the cost of throughput is what killed Walmart’s last Florida partner. DroneUp was spending about $30 to fly a package against a $7 target when it shut 18 hubs in 2024. Neither Wing nor Amazon publishes cost per delivery, so a daily rate is the closest thing to an economics number either has offered.

Amazon’s claim is not empty. Prime Air keeps opening sites. But I have watched Amazon reveal launch sites in Tracy, California and Richmond, Virginia that were missing from the list it published with the 500-city promise. The map is still being drawn. My read is that Wing posted when it did because Amazon’s number was getting repeated without arithmetic behind it, and Walmart’s quarter hands Wing some.

The tell will be Walmart’s November earnings call. The last verified figures came in May: 66 stores in four states and 400,000 flights in a quarter. A store count north of 100 and another quarter of growth would make “thousands a day” look conservative. Flat numbers, with Orlando’s expansion stores still dark and St. Louis still in hearings, would mean the largest network in America stopped growing while its competitor drew circles. Amazon’s own deadline, December 31, comes six weeks later.

Sources: Wing on X (September 3 post), Wing newsroom, Walmart, Walmart Q1 FY27 earnings call, Spectrum News.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.