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In August 2021, Wing announced a milestone: After about 2.5 years of operations, the Alphabet-owned drone-delivery company had dropped off its 100,000th package.
Now, six months later, the company says it has crossed the 200,000-commercial-deliveries line.
Why it matters: Drone delivery is still in its very early stages—Amazon alone delivers millions of packages each day. But it holds promise as a lower-emission way to quickly deliver small packages. For context, Wing’s drones can handle up to 2.6 pounds.
Wing’s growth is powered by its Australian operations, which include partnerships with grocery and food chains (including KFC, which it claims was the most-demanded merchant), and says it has made over 30,000 drone deliveries so far this year.
- It operates in the Australian capital of Canberra, as well as in Logan, a suburb of Brisbane.
For comparison, drone-delivery startup Zipline, which mostly operates in Rwanda and Ghana and specializes in delivering medical products like vaccines and blood, says it has made over 225,000 commercial deliveries to date.
- Zipline recently formalized a partnership with Walmart—a leading tryer-outer of drone-delivery tech in the US—to run a very limited drone-delivery program in Northwest Arkansas.
Looking ahead…In the US, one of the biggest barriers to scaled-up drone delivery is regulation. Until the FAA figures out how to safely and comfortably integrate the tech into existing airspace frameworks, the tech will have a low ceiling in the country.