Amazon Versus Walmart: $717B In Revenue Secures Amazon’s Top Spot As World’s Largest Company – AfroTech
Amazon.com Inc., the e-commerce giant founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, has surpassed Walmart Inc. to become the world’s largest company by revenue, Bloomberg reports.
Amazon’s growth stems from a shift in consumer spending from brick-and-mortar stores to online shopping, as well as the rapid expansion of its cloud-computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the outlet notes.
For the 12 months ending Dec. 31, 2025, Amazon reported sales of $717 billion, while Walmart reported $713.2 billion in sales for its fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2026. Walmart had held the top spot by revenue for more than 10 years.
With most of their revenue coming from the United States, the two retail titans continue to compete closely for consumer dollars. Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer with 2.7 billion visits each month to its website and mobile apps globally, per Bloomberg. Walmart remains the world’s largest physical retailer, operating over 10,000 stores and shopping clubs worldwide, the outlet notes.
The Role Of AI In Amazon And Walmart’s Growth
Without AWS, Amazon would have generated $588 billion in revenue last year — showing that its lead over Walmart rests largely on the significance of cloud data centers in an AI-driven economy, per the outlet.
“This is a hollow victory,” Kirthi Kalyanam, executive director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University, told Bloomberg. “Amazon didn’t beat Walmart in the retail game. It just beat them in revenue by launching a new business Walmart doesn’t operate in.”
Walmart, by contrast, does not compete in cloud computing, making it difficult to match Amazon’s overall revenue, according to the outlet.
Despite this, Walmart has made notable progress in e-commerce and outperformed Amazon’s attempts to expand its physical store presence, Bloomberg notes.
As previously reported by AFROTECH™, Walmart announced on July 24, 2025, the launch of four AI-powered “super agents” designed to enhance the customer experience and streamline operations, part of a broader goal to grow e-commerce to 50% of total sales within five years.
These AI agents, tailored separately for shoppers, associates, suppliers, and developers, leverage agentic AI — a technology built to perform complex tasks with minimal human input, according to AFROTECH™.
“Customers are ready. They are using AI in pretty much everything they do,” said Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s global chief technology officer and chief development officer, emphasizing the timing of the rollout, per the outlet.
