Amazon ends Walmart's 25-year winning streak, topping the Fortune 500

For nearly two decades, Walmart has been the highest-revenue company in the United States. The company has used this title as a promotional highlight when recruiting new employees, internal communications, and engaging with suppliers, claiming to be the top company on the Fortune list.

However, this Thursday, Walmart lost this crown.

Amazon, which was established only 31 years ago, officially surpassed Walmart, which has a 63-year history, in annual revenue, becoming the largest revenue-generating company in the United States. Walmart's sales for the fiscal year ending January 31 were $713.2 billion, while Amazon's revenue for its most recent full fiscal year reached $716.9 billion, a slight difference, marking the culmination of years of competition.

This result witnesses Amazon's rapid rise: from an online bookstore founded by Jeff Bezos in his garage to an industry giant spanning cloud computing, artificial intelligence, entertainment content, and online retail, aiming to comprehensively control the commercial landscape. For Walmart, this also reflects the reality that Amazon's revenue growth has long outpaced its own: last year, Amazon's sales grew by 12.4% year-on-year, while Walmart's was only 4.7%.

Bill Simon, former CEO of Walmart U.S. who stepped down in 2014, stated that during Amazon's decades of continuous expansion, Walmart had to adjust its business model to passively adapt. He commented that Walmart used to be the driver holding the steering wheel, but now it can only sit in the passenger seat.

According to insiders, Walmart's management has long been psychologically prepared to relinquish the top revenue position, with many executives surprised that this turning point came so late. The company's leadership has redefined its development goals, prioritizing being "America's favorite shopping place" rather than solely pursuing the largest scale or fastest growth. Last week, at an internal meeting for store management in Houston, the slogans conveyed this brand positioning.

Previously, Walmart often highlighted "working for the top company on the Fortune list" as a selling point in job postings, showcasing its long-standing position at the top of the Fortune 500. Currently, most of its recruitment copy has removed this statement.

A Walmart spokesperson declined to comment. Amazon did not comment on surpassing Walmart in revenue, with only its spokesperson stating that the company achieved a new high in delivery speed in 2025, with 100 million users utilizing same-day delivery services throughout the year.

Walmart has held the title of the highest-revenue company in the U.S. since 2001 when it took it from ExxonMobil, dominating this position for a long time. The two companies repeatedly competed for this title in the following years until Walmart solidified its advantage in 2009 and maintained it until this recent overtaking.

Walmart CEO John Furner admitted during an analyst call on Thursday, "The pace of change in retail is accelerating. For Walmart, the core keywords for the future are efficiency, convenience, and personalization."

Amazon continues to invest funds into its online business, constantly expanding its product categories, even launching high-ticket items such as luxury handbags and cars, resulting in sales growth in multiple categories that outpaces Walmart. This online retail giant also plans to invest $4 billion to build a same-day delivery hub network in rural areas of the United States; last year, it launched same-day delivery services for fresh produce in over 2,300 towns, stimulating consumer repurchase frequency through rapid delivery and steadily increasing market share According to data from research firm PYMNTS Intelligence, Amazon's share of overall retail consumption in the U.S. was about 9% last fall, a significant increase from the pre-pandemic level of 6%; Walmart's retail share remained stable at around 7.6%, roughly in line with pre-pandemic levels.

For a long time, Amazon and Walmart have been encroaching on each other's customer bases.

In recent years, Walmart has aggressively introduced third-party platform sellers and expanded its product SKUs, covering same-day delivery to 95% of U.S. households; as the largest fresh food retailer in the U.S., its online and offline fresh food market share continues to rise. A survey conducted by data science firm Dunnhumby in December last year showed that about 72% of American households purchased fresh food from Walmart in the past month, a year-on-year increase of 6 percentage points, marking the largest increase since the firm began tracking this data in 2022.

In contrast, Amazon's fresh food strategy has faced challenges, shutting down dozens of physical stores aimed at expanding its fresh food business earlier this year, although this segment still shows slight growth. An Amazon spokesperson revealed that half of the same-day and next-day orders for Prime members consist of fresh and essential daily goods.

While closing some fresh food stores, Amazon announced plans to open new Whole Foods Market locations and intends to create a large integrated retail space in the Chicago area, selling fresh food, clothing, and household goods, directly competing with Walmart's supercenter model.

The two giants have different profit models but are gradually converging: Amazon's profits mainly come from non-retail sectors such as cloud computing and advertising, seizing retail market share through extreme logistics fulfillment; Walmart derives the vast majority of its revenue and profits from its U.S. brick-and-mortar stores while also focusing on online channels, advertising, and membership fees as new growth points.

For many years, Amazon's share of overall retail transaction volume in the U.S. has been higher than Walmart's, but its retail revenue has been lower due to its heavy reliance on third-party seller platform models, only counting transaction commissions as revenue; whereas most of Walmart's sales come from direct sales of its own inventory.

Michael Levin, an analyst at Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, pointed out that even though Amazon is now at the top of the overall revenue rankings in the U.S., it would be very difficult to become the largest in pure retail sales if non-retail business revenues are excluded. He predicts, "Even if one day Amazon surpasses Walmart in pure retail sales, it will take a considerable amount of time."