For the past five years, the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the Fortune 500 have reflected a head-to-head retail rivalry. Walmart, which has ranked in first or second place on the list of America’s biggest companies by revenue every year of the 21st century and has been No. 1 for 12 years in a row, began competing with Amazon for the top spot beginning with the 2020 list, published that spring. (On the 2022 and 2024 Global 500 lists, Amazon was also No. 2.)
The 2020 edition of the Fortune 500 was published amid COVID pandemic lockdowns; however, its rankings reflected results from 2019—so, pre-pandemic financial performance. But from that point, Amazon’s ascent to runner-up status, which had long been in the works, seemed sure to be a fixture of the list for years to come, as consumer behavior during a stay-at-home era fueled online shopping out of both necessity and boredom.
Walmart, of course, has its own robust e-commerce business, and consumers were ordering toilet paper and disinfectants, among other items, from wherever they could get their hands on them. But as past Fortune staffer and contributor Brian Dumaine wrote in the magazine in May 2020, pegged to the release of his book Bezonomics that same month, “If you were designing a company from scratch that could capitalize on a global crisis, it would probably look a lot like Amazon.” That fact goes beyond the company’s status as the “everything store”: Amazon Web Services cloud computing powers much of the world’s digital infrastructure (which proved to be increasingly lucrative upon COVID’s onset). And Prime, Amazon’s subscription business, continues to entice new signups with offerings spanning retail discounts and entertainment streaming. Prime boasts a reported three times the number of members of analog Walmart+.
One key foothold that Walmart has over Amazon is its stores. Amazon has acquired Whole Foods, launched brick-and-mortar brands such as Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh, and partnered with many other retailers on grocery delivery and shipping. Still, given that approximately 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store, Walmart has an advantage when it comes to the physical infrastructure that underpins selling goods online.
The Walmart-Amazon rivalry is a microcosm of many key economic dynamics that define the Fortune 500. There’s much to examine about these companies’ rise to become the highest-revenue-generating corporations in the world—and their competition with each other.
