핵심요약

• 아마존의 연간 매출 7169억 달러가 월마트(7132억 달러)를 처음으로 추월
• 아마존의 제3자 판매자 서비스와 AWS가 각각 총 매출의 24%와 18%를 차지
• 월마트의 미국 디지털 비즈니스가 최근 분기 27% 성장하며 15분기 연속 두자리 수 성장 기록
• 월마트가 나스닥 상장하며 1조 달러 시장가치 돌파

도입

아마존이 월마트를 연간 매출에서 처음으로 추월한 것은 단순한 상징적 의미가 넘어, AI 기술이 기업 운영과 수익 구조를 재편하는 시대를 예고합니다. 투자자들은 두 기업의 전략적 차이와 AI 투자 효율성을 비교 분석할 필요가 있습니다.

본문 1: 아마존의 다각화 전략

아마존은 온라인 쇼핑과 배송 서비스뿐만 아니라 클라우드 컴퓨팅(AWS)과 광고, 판매자 서비스 등 다양한 사업 부문에서 수익을 창출하며 매출 1위를 달성했습니다. 특히 AWS는 총 매출의 18%를 차지하며 안정적인 수익원을 확보했습니다. 이는 단일 사업에 의존하지 않는 포트폴리오 전략이 성공적이었다는 것을 보여줍니다. 아마존의 제3자 판매자 서비스는 총 매출의 24%를 차지하며, 플랫폼 경제의 중요성을 다시 한번 입증했습니다.

본문 2: 월마트의 대응 전략

월마트는 4600개 이상의 매장과 600개의 샘스클럽을 활용해 디지털 비즈니스를 성장시켰으며, 최근 분기 27% 성장하며 15분기 연속 두자리 수 성장을 기록했습니다. 또한, 나스닥 상장과 1조 달러 시장가치 돌파로 기술 기업으로의 전환을 선언하며 아마존과 차별화된 전략을 추구하고 있습니다. 이는 단순한 소매업체에서 기술 기업으로의 변신을 시도하는 과정으로 볼 수 있습니다.

본문 3: AI 기술의 영향

두 기업 모두 AI 기술을 활용해 운영 효율성을 높이고 있습니다. 아마존은 AWS를 통해 클라우드 컴퓨팅 시장에서 선두를 유지하고 있으며, 월마트도 디지털 비즈니스 성장을 통해 AI 기술의 중요성을 강조하고 있습니다. 이는 향후 두 기업의 경쟁이 AI 기술 투자 효율성에 따라 결정될 가능성이 높다는 점을 시사합니다.

결론

아마존이 월마트를 연간 매출에서 추월한 것은 AI 기술이 기업 경쟁 구조를 재편하는 과정의 시작일 가능성이 높습니다. 투자자들은 두 기업의 AI 투자 전략과 그 효율성을 지속적으로 모니터링할 필요가 있습니다. 향후 두 기업의 경쟁은 단순한 매출 규모를 넘어 기술 혁신과 운영 효율성에 따라 결정될 것으로 보입니다.

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원문 링크: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/19/amazon-revenue-passes-walmart-earnings-reports.html

Amazon surpasses Walmart in annual revenue for first time, as both chase AI-fueled growth

For the first time, Amazon has dethroned Walmart as the company with the largest annual revenue.

Walmart on Thursday reported annual revenue of $713.2 billion for its most recent fiscal year, shy of Amazon's $716.9 billion in revenue. The milestone was brewing for months, as Amazon leapfrogged Walmart in quarterly sales for the first time about a year ago.

The shuffle, while largely symbolic, underscores the battle the two retailers have waged both to define and keep up with ever-changing consumer preferences. They are kicking off a new chapter of that rivalry as artificial intelligence reshapes how companies operate, make money and drive sales.

Amazon rose to the top of the revenue pile by doing much more than running a sprawling online web store and promising speedy delivery. While its core retail unit is its largest revenue generator, its huge cloud computing, advertising and seller services businesses also fuel its sales. Third-party seller services, which include commissions and fees collected by Amazon fulfillment along with shipping, advertising and customer support, accounted for about 24% of the company's total sales in 2025, according to its latest annual filing. Amazon Web Services was responsible for roughly 18%.

It wasn't Walmart's weakness that led it to lose its top spot, as its revenue has more than doubled in 20 years. The retailer has leaned on its more than 4,600 Walmart stores and roughly 600 Sam's Club locations in the U.S. to power its digital business, which grew by 27% in the U.S. in the fiscal fourth quarter and has posted double-digit percentage gains for 15 straight quarters.

That expansion came as Walmart riffed off the Amazon playbook and tried to position itself as a tech company as well as a retailer.

There have been multiple signs of its ambitions: Walmart relisted its stock, moving from the New York Stock Exchange to the tech-heavy Nasdaq in early December. Its market value surpassed the $1 trillion mark earlier this month, a valuation achieved almost exclusively by tech companies, including Amazon, after a more than 21% rise in the last year.

And the big-box retailer's fourth-quarter earnings , which were boosted by digital advertising and its third-party marketplace, illustrated Walmart's emphasis on chasing higher-margin businesses and thinking beyond brick-and-mortar retail.

In many ways, Walmart's recent push to grow its third-party marketplace was an answer to the dominance of Amazon's platform. Even as it tries to catch up with Amazon in some areas, Walmart is trying to gain an edge in a new frontier.

Over the past few years, Amazon and Walmart have used different AI strategies to try to make their businesses more efficient and make their merchandise more appealing to shoppers.

Walmart struck a deal with OpenAI's ChatGPT in October and Google's Gemini in January to make its products easier to discover and buy. It also has its own AI-powered shopping assistant, Sparky. The virtual assistant, which looks like a smiley face, pops up on Walmart's app and can help shoppers find items.

Walmart, like many other companies, is in the early days of AI adoption, and it's unclear how the technology will affect its business long-term.

On the company's earnings call on Thursday, Walmart CEO John Furner said customers are spending more when they use Sparky. He said customers who use Sparky have an average order value that's about 35% higher than shoppers who don't use the tool.

About half of Walmart's app users have used Sparky, Walmart U.S. CEO David Guggina said on the earnings call.

"Agentic AI is increasingly embedded across Walmart," Guggina said. "It's strengthening our operations. It's improving associate productivity, and it's enhancing the customer experience."

Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said AI investments are included in the retailer's capital expenditure plans for the full year, which are expected to be roughly 3.5% of sales. Those expenses also include the company's investments in automation and store remodels.

There are limits to Walmart's tech ambitions. When it comes to AI, Rainey said Walmart will lean on the expertise of tech companies rather than try to create its own products.

"As you've seen from the announcements we've made, we're approaching AI development through partnerships," he said on the company's earnings call. "This lets tech companies do what they do best, develop innovative technology, and it provides us clarity to do what we do best, to translate the best of tech to retail experiences that create value for our customers and members and our enterprise."

Like Walmart, Amazon is also facing new pressure to respond to the rise of agentic commerce. Chatbot makers like OpenAI, Google and Perplexity have introduced automated commerce features that aim to change how people shop online.

While other companies like Walmart, Etsy and Shopify have announced shopping partnerships with AI platforms, Amazon has remained on the sidelines . It's blocked agents from accessing its site and has doubled down on its own shopping chatbot, Rufus, which is powered by its own models and Anthropic's chatbot Claude.

The company said Rufus has been used by more than 300 million customers and drove almost $12 billion in incremental annualized sales last year. After slowly rolling out the service in beta two years ago, Amazon has injected Rufus across more areas of its app and website to encourage shoppers to use the tool.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last month that Rufus and other AI tools could assist shoppers with finding products much like an employee in a physical store.

"I think agents are going to help customers with that type of discovery," Jassy said. "And it's part of why we've invested so much in Rufus, which is our shopping assistant."

Meanwhile, Amazon is throwing piles of cash at AI infrastructure. Earlier this month, it announced it would spend up to $200 billion this year on AI initiatives, more than any of the other hyperscalers, which combined have forecast nearly $700 billion in 2026 expenditures. Most of Amazon's spending is expected to go to data centers, chips and networking equipment.

Wall Street has viewed Amazon's capex plans skeptically, sending the company's shares down for nine days straight following its Feb. 5 earnings report and shaving more than $450 billion off of its market value.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/19/amazon-revenue-passes-walmart-earnings-reports.html