Amazon Surpasses Walmart with $187.8 Billion in Quarterly Sales
Amazon's Market Capitalization Now Three Times That of Walmart
Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company, has surpassed offline retail giant Walmart to become the first U.S. company ever to achieve the highest quarterly sales.
On the 20th (local time), Walmart announced that its sales for the last quarter (November 2024 to January 2025) increased by 4% year-on-year to $180.55 billion (258.9989 trillion KRW).
The sales announced by Walmart are lower than Amazon's sales of $187.79 billion for the last quarter (October to December 2024), which Amazon announced on the 6th of last month.
Walmart, Amazon's biggest competitor in the retail industry, has recorded the highest sales over the past 12 years through its online and offline stores. It had held the top sales position since surpassing oil giant ExxonMobil in 2012. However, Walmart lost the top spot to Amazon in last quarter's sales. This is the first time Amazon's sales have exceeded Walmart's.
Unlike Walmart, which generates most of its sales through offline stores worldwide, Amazon earns revenue not only from retail but also from subscriptions, cloud services, and advertising. In particular, Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud service, has more than doubled its sales since 2020, accounting for about 17% of total sales. Additionally, the online shopping market grew significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in Amazon's North American annual sales increasing by more than 100% compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Although Amazon's quarterly sales have surpassed Walmart's for the first time, Walmart still holds the top spot on an annual basis. Amazon's annual sales last year were $637.96 billion, falling short of Walmart's $680.99 billion.
However, the gap is expected to narrow gradually. Wall Street forecasts Walmart's annual sales this year to be $708.7 billion, while Amazon's are expected to be $700.8 billion.
While Walmart still leads in annual sales volume, Amazon's market capitalization at the close of trading on this day was $2.34 trillion, about three times Walmart's $780.9 billion. Amazon's market capitalization surpassed Walmart's in 2015 and has since widened the gap.
Walmart expects its net sales for the fiscal year 2025 (February 2025 to January 2026) to grow by 3-4% and adjusted operating income to increase by 3.5-5.5%. However, this fell short of market expectations, causing its stock price to plunge more than 6%.
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