[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company, has surpassed retail giant Walmart to become the first U.S. company to reach the top spot in quarterly revenue.


Walmart reported revenue of $180.55 billion (approximately 259.27 trillion KRW) for the quarter from November 2024 to January 2025, marking a 4% increase compared to the same period last year.


However, Walmart's quarterly revenue was lower than Amazon's $187.79 billion reported for the previous quarter (October–December 2024), announced on January 6.


Walmart, a long-time competitor of Amazon, has traditionally achieved the highest revenue through its combination of brick-and-mortar and online stores. Since surpassing ExxonMobil in 2012, Walmart has held the title of top revenue earner.


However, in the most recent quarter, Walmart lost the top spot to Amazon, marking the first time Amazon has exceeded Walmart’s revenue.


Only a few companies generate more than $100 billion in quarterly revenue. For instance, Apple, the world’s largest company by market capitalization, only exceeds $100 billion in revenue during the quarter when new iPhones are released (October–December).


Unlike Walmart, which generates most of its revenue from physical retail stores globally, Amazon earns income from a variety of sources, including subscriptions, cloud services, and advertising.


Notably, Amazon's cloud service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has more than doubled its revenue since 2020, now accounting for about 17% of the company’s total revenue.

 

 

 

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