Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Amazon Tops Fortune 500, Ending Walmart’s 13‑Year Reign

Fortune’s new ranking reflects Amazon’s multi‑engine growth from cloud, advertising and marketplace services, which signals rising profit and market‑value concentration among a handful of tech and health giants.

Overview

  • Fortune’s June 3 list put Amazon at No. 1 after the company surpassed $700 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue, a roughly 12% year‑over‑year increase that pushed it past Walmart.
  • Walmart slipped to No. 2 for the first time since 2012 as Amazon’s faster revenue growth closed a narrow gap between the two retail giants.
  • Nvidia climbed to No. 16 and became the first Fortune 500 company worth more than $4 trillion, while Alphabet recorded a record $132 billion in profits and remained the most profitable company on the list.
  • Amazon’s rise reflects multiple business engines rather than a single line of business, with AWS accelerating, advertising growing, and the company reporting $181.5 billion in Q1 2026 revenue with strong cloud momentum.
  • The 2026 Fortune 500 set records for aggregate scale—$21.0 trillion in revenues, $2.1 trillion in profits, $55 trillion in market value—and recorded a high point for female leadership with 55 women CEOs while raising questions about concentrated corporate power and its effects on competition, workers and policy.