Walmart is the richest retail company in the world by revenue, generating over $675 billion in worldwide sales for 2024, maintaining its long-held position as the global leader in retail. It leads by a significant margin over Amazon ($391.4B) and Costco ($244.9B), driven by its massive physical store network and growing e-commerce presence.
Walmart, Amazon and Costco are the top three retailers, respectively, in the National Retail Federation's annual list of Top 100 Retailers which ranks the industry's largest companies according to 2024 U.S. sales.
Amazon.com Inc, Walmart Inc, The Home Depot Inc, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and Costco Wholesale Corp are the top 5 retail chains in the world in 2022 by market capitalization (as of December 31, 2022).
Walmart, by contrast, is the world's largest retailer, operating more than 10,750 stores worldwide across formats that include supercenters, neighborhood markets, discount stores and Sam's Club, alongside a rapidly expanding e-commerce and digital advertising platform.
Reach into your pocket and you will probably find evidence of Tesco. Whether it is a Clubcard, mobile phone or just a receipt from one of its 3,000 stores, the UK's biggest retailer is engrained in everyday British life.
Based on retail sales generated in the financial year 2023, Walmart was by far the world's leading retailer with retail revenues reaching over 648 billion U.S. dollars. Many of the world's leading retailers are American companies. Walmart and Amazon are examples of American retailers doing business around the world.
While Walmart has historically been the largest company by revenue, recent data from late 2024/early 2025 indicates that Amazon has surpassed Walmart in annual revenue, driven by its booming cloud computing (AWS) and e-commerce growth, though Walmart remains a dominant force in physical retail and is a strong competitor. The "bigger" title depends on the metric: Walmart for overall U.S. retail presence, Amazon for digital/cloud dominance and now overall revenue.
Walmart. Walmart remains the largest retailer in the world. It reported $635 billion in global revenue in fiscal 2024, of which $534 billion came from U.S. operations. The company earned around $9 billion in net income.
NRF's Top 100 Retailers ranks the industry's largest companies according to sales. View the complete chart. The National Retail Federation's annual Top 100 Retailers list ranks retailers based on U.S. sales. Walmart continues to hold the top spot, followed by Amazon, Costco, Kroger and The Home Depot.
What is the most successful supermarket in the world?
The United States of America-based Walmart Inc is the leading supermarket and hypermarket in the world (by food service sales). The company reported revenues of $611,289 million for the fiscal year ended January 2023 (FY2023), an increase of 6.72% over FY2022.
Amazon's Dominance: Amazon's FY revenue of £451.4 billion makes it not only the largest retailer by revenue but also highlights its significant 12% year-on-year growth. This underscores Amazon's continued dominance in the UK retail sector, despite being a non-UK-based company.
The Retail Index celebrates the UK's 100 fastest growing retail businesses, with matcha-based energy drink brand PerfectTed claiming the number one position in this year's ranking of Britain's fastest growing retailers.
Walmart is a family- owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family. Sam Walton's heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through their holding company, Walton Enterprises, and through their individual holdings.
