Amazon took aim at Walmart more than two decades ago with Jeff Bezos' vision: transforming the online bookseller into a globe-spanning "everything store." Coming off a big year for the tech giant and Amazon stock, 2025 could be the year Amazon supplants Walmart for the title of world's largest company by revenue.
It's a complicated battle since the companies aren't perfectly comparable. Amazon has a fast-growing cloud computing arm while Walmart has the world's largest footprint of physical stores. Still, Walmart has topped lists of largest companies by revenue, such as the Fortune 500, every year since 2014. But Amazon has been catching up to the retail behemoth. Analysts project the two firms will finish neck-and-neck for 2025.
Still, that doesn't mean Amazon is on its way to vanquishing Walmart as a threat. In fact, Walmart stock outperformed Amazon's last year. Even as new challengers like Temu are capturing attention, analysts say Walmart is stepping up its challenge to Amazon's e-commerce dominance.
"Walmart is significantly growing their e-commerce business while they're also significantly investing in their e-commerce business," CFRA analyst Arun Sundaram, who covers both Amazon and Walmart, told Investor's Business Daily. "Really, Walmart over the last several years has been able to copy from Amazon's playbook."
Amazon Stock: Revenue Battle Vs. Walmart
Walmart will likely keep the crown for largest company by revenue for 2024. For Walmart's January-ending fiscal year, analysts polled by FactSet project that Walmart's sales will grow 5% to $680 billion. Amazon's sales for its December-ended fiscal year are projected to grow 11% to $637.9 billion.
Walmart still sells significantly more goods than Amazon. The National Retail Federation Top 100 retailers list estimates that Walmart accounts for $635 billion in global retail sales compared to Amazon's $360 billion as of 2023, the most recent data.
Of course, Amazon has another $100 billion annual business in cloud computing through Amazon Web Services, along with a fast-growing digital advertising business that has emerged as a rival to giants like Google and Meta
That's why the revenue winner for 2025 looks like a toss-up, based on analyst projections. Walmart is projected for $708.8 billion in revenue for the 12 months ended January 2026, according to FactSet, compared to Amazon's $707 billion projected sales for calendar year 2025.
Amazon could soon surpass Walmart on a quarterly basis for the first time. Amazon's projected $187.3 billion in December quarter revenue could come in ahead of Walmart $179.8 billion in projected sales for its January-ending Q4.
What Revenue Crown Means For Amazon Stock
In fact, it may be a matter of when, not if, Amazon surpasses Walmart, Sundaram said. But Amazon stock is unlikely to move significantly based on whether it surpasses Walmart for total revenue.
"For Amazon, yeah the retail business is important, e-commerce is their main source of revenue," Sundaram told IBD. "But the main source of their profits is their AWS business. And investors really pay more attention to AWS."
Still, the battle is drawing attention as Walmart has upped its challenge to Amazon's e-commerce dominance. Walmart's annual global e-commerce sales surpassed $100 billion in 2023 and are growing fast. E-commerce revenue grew 28% year over year for Walmart's most recent October-ended third quarter. However, e-commerce is still not a profitable business for Walmart.
Amazon captured 42% of U.S. e-commerce spending in 2024 compared to Walmart's 9.6%, according to estimates from BofA Global Research. But Walmart e-commerce market share increased by 1.2% from a year earlier, faster than Amazon's 0.8% increase in market share.
Amazon Stock 45% Gain Vs Walmart 72% Gain
Walmart shares gained 72% in 2024, ranking 20th among top-performers in the S&P 500. Amazon stock gained 45%. Amazon has a market cap above $2 trillion, compared to roughly $760 billion for Walmart.
Walmart refocused its e-commerce business over several years by expanding its third-party seller marketplace and selling advertising on its platform. The company also launched its answer to the $139-per-year Amazon Prime membership in 2020, called Walmart+. For $98 per year, the membership include free delivery from local Walmart locations, free shipping on other items and other benefits.
Rick Watson, chief executive of RMW Commerce Consulting, said Amazon's Prime subscription provides the company with "one of the most defensible moats in North America."
An estimated 194 million Americans had an Amazon Prime membership as of December, according to estimates by the research firm CIRP.
Walmart+, meanwhile, is believed by analysts to be far smaller.
But Walmart has made the right moves to make its subscription offering more compelling, Watson said, including by expanding online inventory through third-party sellers.
"Amazon is still the king," Watson told IBD. "Walmart, it seems, has found a good formula with the same-day services combined with grocery and increasing selection online. So they're on a really good growth trajectory."
Other retailers, such as Target, are still looking for the right loyalty formula in membership offerings, Watson added.
Amazon Is Retail Advertising King
A key part of Amazon's recent growth and improved retail margins is its advertising business. Amazon is projected to bring in $56.3 billion in advertising revenue for 2024, according to FactSet.
The tech giant pioneered and dominates the retail media search advertising category. Research firm eMarketer projects that 80% of retail media search revenue went to Amazon last year.
But Walmart's efforts are growing quickly. eMarketer forecast in June that Walmart would account for 40% of "non-Amazon retail media search ad dollars" in 2024 — top among all competitors. Bernstein analysts believe Walmart has room to grow its ad revenue.
"Compared to Amazon's ad revenue at (more than) 7% of gross merchandise value, Walmart's U.S. ad revenue is only at a low-single-digital percentage of GMV today," wrote Bernstein analyst Zhihan Ma in a recent client note. "We believe that Walmart can play catch-up by growing its marketplace, but likely won't achieve Amazon's level as Walmart strikes a balance between maintaining its e-grocery stronghold and growing the more profitable third-party business."
Walmart's Advantage Over Amazon?
There is one e-commerce sector where Walmart is the clear leader: groceries. Even with its purchase of Whole Foods eight years ago, Amazon has struggled to match Walmart's scale for food and other essentials.
Walmart captured the highest percentage of U.S. online grocery sales in 2024 at 27%, according to eMarketer projections. Amazon is projected at 18.5% of sales, by the same projections.
Amazon is adjusting its strategy. Last year, it launched a new grocery subscription option and took efforts to streamline the supply chain and customer interface for its Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh and third-party grocer offerings.
In a letter to shareholder last year, Chief Executive Andy Jassy highlighted grocery alongside generative AI, Prime Video and health care as potential growth areas for Amazon.
There are reasons it remains a priority.
"If you can attract a customer to come into your website or your store to buy groceries, it's so much easier to sell them other things, whether a T-shirt, furniture, whatever it is," Sundaram told IBD. "That's what Amazon really wanted to do by getting more competitive in the grocery space. But they've struggled. "
That means, in this case, Amazon is still hoping to be the disrupter. Sundaram said he expects Amazon will pursue more "investment in that area, to try to better compete with the giants like Walmart."
