Amazon and Big Tech Market Power

Amazon has, for the first time, reported higher annual revenue than Walmart, making it the world’s largest company by sales and underscoring how tech and cloud computing have overtaken traditional retail in driving corporate scale. For the year ending in December 2025, Amazon booked $716.9 billion in revenue, edging out Walmart’s $713.2 billion for the year ending January 2026. While Walmart still dominates brick‑and‑mortar retail with nearly 11,000 stores and more than 2 million employees worldwide, Amazon’s lead is powered by its Amazon Web Services cloud division, which just posted its fastest growth in years as companies pour money into AI‑ready data centers. Walmart is growing online—its e‑commerce sales rose 24% and it is expanding rapid delivery—but it has no comparable cloud business, and both giants are now aggressively targeting the same U.S. consumers, including higher‑income shoppers. For investors and policymakers, the flip in rankings highlights how much market power and infrastructure now sit inside a single tech conglomerate that straddles online retail, logistics and the cloud services underpinning much of the U.S. digital economy.