In 2025, Amazon overtook Walmart by sales volume, stripping the Arkansas-based company of its status as the world’s largest by revenue for the first time in 13 years. For the most recent fiscal year, Walmart reported revenue of $713.2 billion, while Amazon’s revenue reached $716.9 billion, according to fourth-quarter filings released earlier this month. Year on year, Walmart’s total revenue increased by 4.7 percent compared with 2024.
The bulk of Amazon’s revenue last year—about $464 billion—came from online sales and physical stores. At Walmart, roughly 90 percent of revenue was generated by brick-and-mortar outlets and online channels. The difference in business structure reflects a broader shift in consumer spending toward e-commerce, a trend that over the past decade has worked to Amazon’s advantage: over this period, its revenue growth was almost ten times higher than Walmart’s.
On the same day, Walmart’s board approved an annual cash dividend of $0.99 per share for the 2027 fiscal year, a 5 percent increase from a year earlier. “Dividends remain part of our diversified approach to returning capital to shareholders,” said John David Rainey, Walmart’s executive vice president. “We are proud to be raising the annual dividend for the 53rd consecutive year. This decision underscores our confidence in the company’s performance and its long-term growth.”
The turning point for the market coincided with a sweeping transformation at Amazon. Last month, the company announced plans to cut 16,000 jobs as part of a strategic shift toward expanding its artificial-intelligence capabilities. In June, Amazon’s chief executive, Andy Jassy, warned employees that headcount would likely continue to shrink in the coming years as AI becomes more deeply embedded across the business. “We will need fewer people for some of the jobs that are done today, and more people for other kinds of work,” he said at the time.
Since its founding in 1994, Amazon has expanded dramatically, building a portfolio of subsidiary businesses that includes Amazon Web Services, Ring, the streaming platform Twitch, Amazon Prime Video, and Amazon MGM Studios. In January, Amazon announced the closure of Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores, opting to concentrate on the expansion of the Whole Foods Market chain. Some of the locations being shuttered are expected to be converted to operate under that brand.
Last year, Amazon MGM Studios also secured creative control over the James Bond franchise, replacing Eon Productions in that role. The studio assumed stewardship of the “007” series after its longtime producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, announced their departure amid disagreements with Amazon MGM over the franchise’s future direction.