Overview
- Amazon reported roughly $716.9–$717 billion in 2025 sales versus Walmart’s $713.2 billion for the year ended Jan. 31, breaking Walmart’s long hold on the top spot.
- Different fiscal calendars factor into the close gap, yet Amazon’s faster growth—about 12.4% last year versus Walmart’s 4.7%—helped push it ahead.
- Analysts note AWS is pivotal to the lead, estimating Amazon’s revenue would have been about $588 billion without the cloud unit, a business where Walmart does not compete.
- Amazon’s retail push has leaned on speed, including same‑day grocery delivery in more than 2,300 towns and a $4 billion build‑out of rural same‑day hubs.
- Walmart remains the largest bricks‑and‑mortar retailer with over 10,000 stores and is accelerating e‑commerce, advertising, automation and AI tools such as its Sparky shopping assistant.