Amazon.com Inc. has officially surpassed Walmart Inc. to become the world’s biggest company by revenue, marking a historic milestone for the e-commerce and cloud-computing giant that began its journey in 1994 as an online bookseller in a Seattle-area garage founded by Jeff Bezos.
Walmart, which had held the top position for more than a decade, reported revenue of $713.2 billion for the 12 months ending January 31. Amazon, whose fiscal year ends in December, earlier announced total revenue of $717 billion for 2025, pushing it ahead of the retail heavyweight.
Bezos had closely studied Walmart founder Sam Walton and adopted several of his business principles while building Amazon. Over the past decade, Amazon’s revenue growth has far outpaced Walmart’s—nearly ten times faster—driven by a steady shift in consumer spending from physical stores to online platforms, along with the rapid expansion of its cloud business.
Amazon and Walmart continue to compete directly for consumer spending. Amazon dominates online retail, with its website and mobile applications drawing around 2.7 billion visits every month. Walmart, meanwhile, remains the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer, operating over 10,000 stores and shopping clubs globally. For both companies, the bulk of revenue is generated in the United States.
While Walmart has made notable progress in strengthening its e-commerce operations, Amazon has seen comparatively limited success in building a large physical retail presence, despite its 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods Market.
However, analysts note that Amazon’s rise to the top is driven less by retail and more by its dominance in cloud computing. Without Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s 2025 revenue would have stood at $588 billion. Its ascent, therefore, underscores the growing importance of data centres and cloud infrastructure in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.