Amazon has overtaken Walmart as the world’s largest company in sales, breaking a 13-year streak by the retail giant at the top of the list.
What happened
- Amazon is projected to sell $717 billion compared to Walmart’s $713 billion in 2025. The American supermarket chain had been considered the world’s largest company in sales for 13 years, according to a report by the American website CNN.
- Amazon and Walmart don’t compete in every sector. While both are competitors in retail for the end consumer, what helped Amazon surpass Walmart was revenue growth in cloud computing, advertising, and other businesses.
- Founded in 1994 as an online bookstore, Amazon projected revenues of nearly US$129 billion by 2025 through its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. AWS provides computing, storage, and artificial intelligence solutions to businesses and governments worldwide.
- Approximately $464 billion of Amazon’s revenue came from sales in online and physical stores. Amazon also earned over $100 billion from advertising and Prime subscriptions.
- Walmart, on the other hand, concentrates more than 90% of its sales in its physical stores and websites. These sales are driven by middle and upper-class families who turn to the retailer in search of savings.
- Despite the rise of Amazon, Walmart has adapted and is in its best shape in years. Its shares recently surpassed the $1 trillion mark in market value, making it the first traditional retailer to reach that level. Walmart has also moved its shares to the Nasdaq, indicating to investors that it wants to be seen as a technology company.
- In the US alone, Walmart’s sales grew 4.6% in the last quarter. “The pace of change in retail is accelerating,” CEO John Furner said in a statement. “Our financial results show that we are not only embracing this change, but also leading it.”
