Overview
Amazon, founded in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, sells consumer products online and in physical stores and operates Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud-computing business.[2] Forbes records sales of US$742.8bn, 16.4% above the prior-year figure, which moved Amazon ahead of Walmart into first place on the Forbes sales measure.[2] Its sales are not purely retail: Forbes describes North America and International segments that combine product sales, third-party seller services, advertising and subscriptions, and a separate AWS segment for computing, storage and database services.[2] Because Amazon’s total includes services revenue, the comparison with Walmart is not like for like.[6] Amazon’s profit of US$90.8bn is more than four times Walmart’s, and its market value of US$2.84 trillion makes it by far the most valuable company in the list.[2] Forbes counts 1,576,000 employees, the second-largest workforce here after Walmart.[2]
Amazon strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Highest sales and profit in the ranking
- Market value of US$2.84 trillion
- Sales growth of 16.4%
Limitations
- Revenue includes cloud computing and advertising, not only retail
- Retail and cloud revenues are combined in one figure
- Workforce of over 1.5 million is costly to manage
Appears in
- Largest Companies in the World by Revenue (2026) #1
- Largest Employers in the US (2026) #2
- Largest Retailers in the World (2026) #1
Amazon peers and competitors
Companies ranked in the same lists as Amazon.
Walmart
Costco Wholesale
JPMorgan Chase- TJX Companies
Kroger- Lowe’s
Target- Home Depot
Microsoft Power BI- Berkshire Hathaway
- UnitedHealth Group
- CVS Health
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