Amazon claimed the top spot on the 2026 Fortune Global 500 list released July 28, ending Walmart’s 12-year reign as the world’s largest company by revenue. The Seattle e-commerce and cloud giant reported $716.9 billion in annual revenue, narrowly surpassing Walmart’s $713.2 billion and marking a historic shift in the corporate hierarchy.
The achievement places Amazon in rarefied company: it is only the sixth company in the 37-year history of the Fortune Global 500 to hold the top position, joining Walmart, Shell, ExxonMobil, General Motors, and one other. This milestone caps a remarkable ascent for the company founded in 1994 as an online bookstore.
Amazon’s path to the summit was fueled by extraordinary revenue growth. Between 2018 and 2025, Amazon achieved a cumulative annual growth rate about three times that of Walmart, according to Fortune’s analysis. While Amazon’s e-commerce business—which now commands roughly 40 percent of U.S. digital retail sales—remains the company’s largest revenue driver, the real engine of profitability has been Amazon Web Services.
AWS, launched in 2006 as an internal initiative to boost Amazon’s computing capacity, has evolved into a cash cow that subsidizes the company’s aggressive expansion into new markets. In 2025, AWS generated $128.7 billion in revenue, representing 20 percent year-over-year growth, and produced 57 percent of Amazon’s operating profit despite accounting for less than one-fifth of total revenue. This profitability advantage has allowed Amazon to invest heavily in experimental ventures—from streaming entertainment to logistics infrastructure—in ways competitors cannot match.
Amazon’s rise reflects the company’s relentless focus on reinvention and what CEO Andy Jassy calls a “day one” culture, meaning employees should act as though they work at a startup, not an established corporation. The strategy has included building Prime, a membership program that locked in 80 percent of U.S. households, and launching Amazon’s own logistics network, which now delivers 29 percent of packages in the United States.
Walmart’s Transformation in Response
Walmart’s 12-year reign at the top was not passive. The retailer, which had dismissed e-commerce as a fad in the 1990s, underwent a sweeping transformation after appointing CEO Doug McMillon in 2014. McMillon, a company lifer, modernized Walmart’s operations and connected its vast store network with e-commerce capabilities, turning thousands of locations into distribution nodes for faster delivery and pickup.
That strategy paid dividends during the pandemic and beyond. Walmart is now the second-largest e-commerce player in the United States with roughly $120 billion in annual digital sales, and in its most recent quarter, U.S. e-commerce grew 27 percent. The company has also built fast-growing ventures in advertising and media, and partnered with OpenAI to let customers shop directly within ChatGPT using an instant checkout feature.
Paradoxically, Amazon’s competitive pressure transformed Walmart into a more tech-forward company. The two rivals have come to resemble each other in both revenue breakdown and culture, competing across e-commerce, advertising, logistics, and increasingly artificial intelligence. Neil Saunders, managing director of research firm GlobalData, noted that for a company Amazon’s size, making bold bets is prudent: “Indeed, the cost of not making bold moves is far riskier than the cost of steep investment.”
Amazon’s ascension to the top of the Fortune Global 500 signals a broader shift in how companies compete. Rather than relying on a single dominant business model, the company that now leads the world by revenue has built an empire spanning retail, cloud infrastructure, advertising, entertainment, and logistics. For Walmart and other traditional retailers, the challenge ahead is to continue innovating at scale—a lesson Amazon’s reign at the top now underscores.
Sources
- Fortune — Amazon’s top-spot achievement on the 2026 Global 500 list, Walmart’s prior reign, historical context on companies holding #1, and detailed analysis of Amazon’s business model and growth strategy
- Yahoo Finance — Confirmation of Amazon ending Walmart’s 12-year run, revenue figures of $716.9B vs $713.2B
- Morningstar / PR Newswire — Fortune’s announcement of the 2026 Global 500 list with Amazon at #1 and Walmart’s 12-year run ending
- Amazon Investor Relations — AWS revenue of $128.7B in 2025, 20% year-over-year growth, and 57% of operating profit
- Reuters, The Hill, NPR, Wall Street Journal — Amazon’s revenue growth trajectory, AWS profitability, and comparative analysis with Walmart
