Amazon Tops Walmart in Revenue for First Time, Fueled by AI

Amazon has a new bragging right: For the first time, it generated more annual revenue than Walmart, the retailer that has dominated the top spot for more than a decade.

The milestone marks a notable shift in global retail and enterprise technology. Amazon reported $716.9 billion in 2025 revenue, narrowly surpassing Walmart’s $713.2 billion for its most recent fiscal year. The difference reflects Amazon’s expansion beyond retail into cloud computing, advertising, and third-party marketplace services.

Those businesses now account for a significant share of Amazon’s total sales and helped push it past its longtime rival.

Amazon moves ahead on annual sales

CNBC reported that Amazon posted $716.9 billion in revenue for calendar year 2025, compared with Walmart’s $713.2 billion for its most recent fiscal year. The gap had been building, as Amazon first surpassed Walmart in quarterly sales about a year ago.

Bloomberg noted that the result ended Walmart’s more than a decade-long run as the world’s largest company by revenue. 

“Leading the world’s companies in sales is seen more as a measure of global scale and consumer reach than overall value and profitability, but it’s still worth some bragging rights,” Bloomberg wrote.

Amazon’s diversified business model played a key role in the milestone. According to CNBC, third-party seller services accounted for about 24% of Amazon’s total sales in 2025, while Amazon Web Services contributed roughly 18%.

Bloomberg also reported that Amazon’s revenue without cloud computing would have totaled about $588 billion, more than $100 billion short of Walmart’s overall sales.

Fortune provided additional context on AWS’s importance, highlighting that in 2025, the cloud division generated $128.7 billion in revenue and $45.6 billion in operating income. While AWS represents less than one-fifth of Amazon’s total revenue, it accounts for more than half of its operating profit. 

Walmart remains a formidable competitor. The retailer has more than doubled its revenue over the past two decades and continues to expand digital operations. Its U.S. digital business grew 27% in the fourth quarter, marking 15 consecutive quarters of double-digit gains, CNBC explained.

Different approaches to AI

Artificial intelligence is central to both companies, but they are pursuing different models. 

According to CNBC, Walmart struck a deal with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to make its product easier to discover and buy. The company also launched its own AI-powered shopping assistant, Sparky, which appears on its app, helping shoppers find specific items. 

On the company’s earnings call, Walmart US CEO David Guggina said, “Agentic AI is increasingly embedded across Walmart. It’s strengthening our operations. It’s improving associate productivity, and it’s enhancing the customer experience.”

Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey also emphasized that Walmart would continue relying on outside technology providers. “As you’ve seen from the announcements we’ve made, we’re approaching AI development through partnerships,” Rainey mentioned. 

Bloomberg said that Amazon has focused heavily on AI infrastructure. Earlier this month, Amazon shocked investors when it announced plans to spend $200 billion in 2026 on data centers, chips, and networking equipment to support AI initiatives. 

CNBC also stated that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has positioned AI as central to future growth. “I think agents are going to help customers with that type of discovery,” Jassy said, referring to Amazon’s shopping assistant Rufus. 

According to CNBC, Rufus has been used by more than 300 million customers and generated nearly $12 billion in incremental annualized sales last year. The figures illustrate how Amazon is tying AI tools directly to revenue growth as it expands beyond retail into cloud and infrastructure. 

As Amazon increases AI spending, read how Microsoft plans to invest $50 billion by 2030 to expand AI infrastructure and digital skills across the Global South.

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