Amazon Stock Is Slumping. But The Tech Giant Just Dethroned Walmart For This Milestone.

Amazon (AMZN) has officially dethroned Walmart (WMT) as the world’s top company by revenue. Walmart’s fiscal Q4 results on Thursday showed Amazon pulling ahead in 12-month revenue for the first time, a milestone forecast by Amazon stock analysts coming into 2025.

Walmart on Thursday reported annual sales of $713.2 billion for the 12 months ending Jan. 31, compared with Amazon’s $716.9 billion in sales for the 12 months ended Dec. 31. Walmart’s revenue grew 4.7% year over year, while Amazon’s grew 12%.

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The massive retail empire operated by Walmart has placed the company at the top of lists of largest firms by revenue, such as the Fortune 500, every year since 2014. Fortune declared Amazon’s ascension to the top of its list in an article published Thursday morning, though the publication’s official list is not due out until June.

Amazon’s lead in e-commerce and its fast-growing cloud-computing and advertising operations have allowed it to steadily gain ground on Walmart. Amazon beat Walmart in quarterly revenue last year for the first time.

Amazon is leapfrogging Walmart amid an intense rivalry between the two giants. Walmart is increasingly challenging Amazon in e-commerce and has struck partnerships to boost its sales through AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Amazon, for its part, wants to chip away at Walmart’s dominance in the grocery market.

Amazon Stock: Rocky Start To Year

Meanwhile, Amazon stock traded flat Thursday, last up a fraction in midday trades on the stock market today.

It has been a rough year for Amazon stock overall. Shares entered trading Thursday down 11% year-to-date and off about 10% from 12 months earlier. A 1% gain on Tuesday broke a streak of nine consecutive losing trading days for Amazon stock.

Amazon stock has slumped sharply since the company reported fourth-quarter results on Feb. 5. Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in a news release announcing the results that Amazon planned to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, focused on building data centers to meet AI demand for its cloud business.

That spending clearly spooked investors. Analysts with Morgan Stanley offered support for Amazon in a client note earlier this week.

“The name is caught in GenAI narrative crosscurrents and question marks around ROIC (return on invested capital) on its AI-related capex,” Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak wrote on Tuesday. “That said, we remain bullish through this uncertainty and continue to think Amazon is the most under-appreciated GenAI winner of our coverage. We believe its Amazon Web Services and retail businesses are both positioned to drive and benefit from the technology and behavior changes ahead.”

Nowak reiterated a “top pick” designation for Amazon stock and a price target of 300, implying more than 50% upside at the time of the note.

For its part, Walmart stock is down a fraction in recent trades. Walmart shares have gained more than 20% over the past 12 months and are ahead 13% so far this year.

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