Wing, the Alphabet-owned drone delivery company, signed a partnership with Japanese carrier KDDI and its subsidiary KDDI SmartDrone on October 27 to bring drone delivery to Japan, the three companies said. The first flights are planned for 2027 in a handful of areas, carrying groceries and daily goods, and the one retailer named is the convenience store chain Lawson.
KDDI has owned half of Lawson since 2024. The carrier also supplies the mobile network Japanese drones fly on beyond the pilot’s sight. Wing supplies the aircraft, and the retailer and the network belong to its partner.
Wing’s own announcement sets the goal as service in select areas “by the end of 2027” and calls Japan a market that is still developing its drone delivery rules. Japan has allowed autonomous flights over residential areas since December 2022.
Wing Brings the Aircraft, KDDI Brings the Network and the Paperwork
The KDDI release splits the work in two. Wing contributes its autonomous aircraft, its flight operations software and its automated ground stations. KDDI and KDDI SmartDrone contribute the communications layer, the regulatory handling and their experience putting drones to work with local governments across Japan.
KDDI SmartDrone controls aircraft over the carrier’s 4G LTE network, which is what lets a drone fly out of the operator’s line of sight. The company is building drone ports around the country and in September flew remote surveys of flood damage in Ishikawa Prefecture after heavy rain. It also runs a drone school at more than 20 sites that trains pilots for Japan’s national licence. The three companies will deliver food, daily necessities, over-the-counter medicine and small retail orders, and they say the product list and the service map will grow through deals with municipalities and regional partners after the 2027 start.
Wing’s record going in is more than one million home deliveries as of this month, thousands a day across five US markets, usually inside 30 minutes of the order. The release gives no delivery-time target for Japan.
KDDI Owns Half of Lawson, So the First Shelf on the Route Is Its Own
KDDI, Mitsubishi and Lawson signed a capital partnership on February 6, 2024, and KDDI’s tender offer at 10,360 yen a share closed that May. Lawson has since been delisted, Mitsubishi and KDDI hold 50 percent each, and KDDI’s new release counts the chain among its own consumer businesses.
The release leans on a government figure to make the case for flying groceries. Japan’s agriculture ministry estimated in 2020 that about 9.04 million people have trouble reaching a food store as stores close and the population ages. KDDI pairs that with the “2024 logistics problem,” the name Japan gave to the driver shortage that followed an annual cap of 960 overtime hours on truck drivers in April 2024. Its third argument is dual-income households with children, who it says have no time left to shop.
The partners also want the network available for deliveries when a disaster cuts roads.
Japan Opened Residential Drone Routes in 2022, and Wing Still Calls the Rules Unfinished
Japan lifted its ban on autonomous flights over inhabited areas on December 5, 2022, as DroneXL reported when the revised Civil Aeronautics Act took effect. The transport ministry calls them Level 4 flights and asks for a Class 1 aircraft certification, a Class 1 pilot certificate and a flight permission.
Wing’s post still describes Japan as a country that “develops a safe, scalable regulatory framework for drone delivery,” which reads as a company that expects the permission step to take time. Its Japanese partners are the ones who have been through that process, and the release says so.
Japan would be Wing’s first new country since Ireland, where it started flying in Lusk in 2022, and it flew in Australia before any US suburb. Wing’s locations page today lists five US metros flying, 14 more coming soon, and nothing outside the country. In the US it is adding Denver and Seattle with Walmart for the same year it has promised Japan.
DroneXL’s Take
Japan is a better fit for drone delivery than any US suburb Wing flies today, and KDDI is a better partner than Walmart. The US case for drone delivery is convenience, and two Denver suburbs froze hub applications before Wing had even named the city. Japan’s case is nine million people who can no longer get to a store and a trucking industry that ran out of drivers by law. That is a public service, and it is why Japan cleared residential routes in 2022 while the FAA’s Part 108 still sits unsigned.
KDDI will hold the aircraft contract, the network the aircraft fly on, half of the only retailer named, and the relationships with the towns that approve the routes. Walmart brings Wing the stores and nothing else. The 2027 launch will show whether KDDI opens that network to a competing chain or keeps it as a Lawson delivery service with a Wing logo on the wing. I expect the first version to be Lawson only, and I expect the municipalities, not KDDI, to push for the second.
Sources: KDDI, Wing, KDDI, Mitsubishi and Lawson agreement, Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
