Stocks
February 23, 2026
The Walmart vs Amazon stock is one of the clearest debates in the market right now. Amazon just overtook Walmart as the largest U.S. company by revenue, posting $717 billion in sales for 2025, against Walmart’s $713.2 billion. That said, the Amazon AWS growth is re-accelerating while Walmart earnings growth is slowing, and the valuation gap between these two trillion-dollar stocks tells a story the headlines keep missing. Walmart is winning the moment. Amazon is winning the decade.
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Walmart vs Amazon Stock as Revenue Trends and AWS Growth Diverge
Walmart’s Numbers Look Great Until You Check the Valuation
Walmart earnings growth was real last year: revenue up 5.1% on a constant currency basis, e-commerce up 24%, EPS up 13.3%, and free cash flow reaching $14.9 billion. The stock has been carried higher by investors who see it as insulated from AI disruption and tariff uncertainty.
The issue is what management guided for next: roughly 4% sales growth and EPS growth of 4% to 8%. Analysts expected $2.97 per share; Walmart guided to $2.80 at the midpoint. The stock trades at around 45 times fiscal 2027 earnings right now, which is a very steep price for that kind of growth.
Kirthi Kalyanam, executive director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University, stated:
“This is a hollow victory. Amazon didn’t beat Walmart in the retail game. It just beat them in revenue by launching a new business Walmart doesn’t operate in.”
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AWS Is What Makes Amazon vs Walmart Revenue an Unfair Fight
Amazon AWS growth accelerated to 24% last quarter, with a contracted backlog of $244 billion. Without AWS, Amazon would have generated $588 billion in revenue last year, meaning the entire lead over Walmart rests on cloud computing. The $200 billion capex plan for 2026 spooked markets and pushed Amazon shares lower, but management has consistently noted that demand continues to outstrip supply.
Bottom Line: AMZN vs WMT
Amazon vs Walmart revenue looks like a photo finish. If we strip out AWS, it flips the other way entirely, and that’s happening at around 26 times forward earnings, Walmart vs Amazon stock comparison is not really that close either: you are paying 45x for Walmart’s single-digit growth versus 26x for Amazon’s mid-teens top-line growth and expanding margins.
Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s global chief technology officer and chief development officer, said:
“Customers are ready. They are using AI in pretty much everything they do.”
Walmart is pursuing AI aggressively in retail, and that matters. But Amazon’s AI exposure runs much deeper, through the infrastructure layer that every major company is now being forced to spend on.
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