Amazon Takes the Revenue Crown as Walmart’s Troubles Begin
Jeff Bezos spent years studying Sam Walton’s playbook. What followed was corporate patricide. Amazon officially overtook Walmart as the world’s biggest company by sales in 2025, posting $717B in revenue against the latter’s $713.2B. The takeover ended Walmart’s decade-long reign, except the crown may be the least of its worries right now.
- Amazon’s revenue grew at nearly 10x Walmart’s pace over the past decade — a gap built on AWS’ cloud dominance and a structural shift in how consumers shop.
- But, strip out AWS and Amazon’s 2025 turnover drops to $588B — while Walmart actually outpaces the Seattle tech giant in e-commerce, despite its Whole Foods push.
Cleanup on aisle one: As cloud overtakes carts, Walmart’s lane just hit some turbulence. Its conservative full-year profit forecast ($2.75-$2.85) missed Wall Street’s expectations ($2.97), as tariffs and a softening jobs market muddied the outlook. Investors are treating the cautious guidance as a broader economic read — spending is holding, but the ground beneath it feels unsteady, especially for lower-income shoppers. As for Amazon’s new trophy, it historically draws political heat and sky-high expectations anyway. Walmart might be quietly relieved to hand it over and rebuild from aisle two.
