Amazon surpasses Walmart as the largest company by revenue in the U.S. as retail’s tech era takes hold
Good morning. Amazon is poised to take Walmart’s top spot in what has become a contest between two tech-enabled giants.
After Walmart reported a record $713.2 billion in fiscal-year revenue on Thursday, Amazon edged past it with $716.9 billion for 2025—positioning the Seattle-based company to debut at No. 1 on the next Fortune 500 ranking, set for release in June.
That would mark a significant shift. For the past 13 years—and 21 of the past 24—Walmart has held the No. 1 spot on the list. Fifteen years ago, Amazon was a fraction of Walmart’s size; today, its multi-engine model, spanning e-commerce, logistics, AWS, and a fast-growing advertising business, has produced a growth rate roughly three times Walmart’s in recent years. The result is not just a new revenue leader, but a reshaped definition of what a “retailer” looks like in the age of cloud computing and AI.
Yet the deeper story for CFOs and investors is how much these two rivals now resemble each other. Walmart is leaning into e-commerce, data, automation, and advertising, while Amazon continues to invest heavily in physical infrastructure and everyday essentials. You can read more about the numbers, the strategy, and what Amazon’s long march past Walmart signals about the future of scale, margins, and customer “obsession” in a deep dive by Fortune’s Phil Wahba.
Walmart’s earnings for the quarter ended Jan. 31 showed that its fastest-growing profit engines are tech-enabled businesses such as digital advertising and membership, which account for a disproportionately large share of operating income relative to their share of sales. U.S. e-commerce reached a record 23% of fourth-quarter sales, rising 27% year over year and driving most of the company’s growth. For the full year, e-commerce sales exceeded $150 billion for the first time.
On Thursday’s earnings call, executives highlighted the impact of automated distribution centers on delivery costs as they pitched a “people-led, tech-powered omnichannel” model. AI was also central to the message.
Walmart CFO John David Rainey said the company is pursuing AI development through partnerships. The company most recently announced they’re working with OpenAI and Google.
“AI is increasingly embedded across Walmart,” Rainey said. “It’s strengthening our operations, improving associate productivity, and enhancing the customer experience, and that’s coming to life with Sparky.”
Sparky is Walmart’s generative AI-powered shopping assistant, which is evolving into a more agentic AI platform. Roughly half of app users have tried Sparky, he said, and customers who engage with it have an average order value about 35% higher than those who do not.
The AI emphasis dovetails with Walmart’s recent move to the Nasdaq and inclusion in the Nasdaq-100, which is a signal that the company wants investors to benchmark it alongside platform and cloud-era leaders, including Amazon, rather than the traditional retailers it once disrupted.
Have a good weekend.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com