Amazon set to pass Walmart in revenue for first time

Amazon long ago passed Walmart in terms of market cap, but the e-commerce giant is finally poised to leapfrog its brick-and-mortar rival by another key metric: revenue.

For the past dozen years, Walmart held the distinction of being the top revenue generator each quarter. In 2012, it overtook oil giant Exxon Mobil, according to LSEG senior research analyst Tajinder Dhillon.

Walmart remained in the lead after oil prices tumbled in subsequent years from their previously lofty levels of more than $100 per barrel.

In its earnings release after the close of trading Thursday, Amazon is expected to report revenue of $187 billion, according to analysts surveyed by LSEG. Walmart reports on Feb. 20, and is projected to announce sales of $180 billion.

Walmart, which is often dubbed the world’s biggest retailer, in reference to its revenue, still leads the way when it comes to annual sales. The company has turned in more than $600 billion in sales in each of the past two years. That number is expected to reach nearly $681 billion for the latest fiscal year.

Amazon is catching up. Based on fourth-quarter estimates, Amazon’s full year revenue for 2024 will come in at around $638 billion, marking the first time it’s surpassed the $600 billion milestone.

One big reason Amazon has shot up the charts is its cloud business, Amazon Web Services. Revenue at AWS has more than doubled since 2020 and now accounts for about 17% of total sales.

The Covid pandemic also dramatically altered consumer behavior toward online shopping, which has helped Amazon’s annual North America sales increase more than 100% since 2019, the year before the pandemic.

Very few companies ever even reach $100 billion in revenue in a quarter. In addition to Walmart and Amazon, Apple has done so, but only during the holiday quarter, its key iPhone selling period. Last week, Apple reported revenue for the latest quarter of $124 billion.

The newest member of the exclusive $100 billion club is UnitedHealth, which saw its top line climb past that mark in the first quarter of last year and then again in the third and fourth quarters.

The two companies closest to joining the group, with a little bit of growth, are CVS Health and McKesson. CVS exceeded $95 billion in revenue in the September quarter, while McKesson hit $94 billion.