Amazon vs. Walmart: AI Is Reshaping the Retail Battlefield

1 hour ago 4

John Ballard, The Motley Fool

Wed, May 13, 2026 astatine 12:14 PM CDT 4 min read

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has dominated the e-commerce marketplace for galore years, but Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT) inactive has a commanding beingness with its monolithic carnal store base. Amazon’s quarterly gross has been much lumpy than Walmart’s, but it generates acold higher margins acknowledgment to beardown maturation successful non-retail services similar unreality computing.

What’s becoming much evident is that artificial quality (AI)-powered buying assistants are gaining traction with their customers. The retailer that tin amended integrate AI into the online buying acquisition volition person the precocious manus implicit the adjacent decade.

Amazon: Seasonal Peaks successful Revenue

Amazon chiefly retails user products, manufactures physics devices, and provides unreality computing services globally.

It agreed to get Globalstar and partnered with OpenAI, portion reporting an astir 17% nett income borderline for the 4th ended March 31, 2026.

Walmart: Steady Revenue Trajectory

Walmart operates retail supercenters, warehouse clubs, and integer outgo platforms for consumers worldwide.

It opened a caller beverage processing installation to trim proviso concatenation costs and is progressively investing successful AI. For the 4th ended Jan. 31, 2026, Walmart reported a nett income borderline of astir 2%.

Why Revenue Matters for Retail Investors

Revenue is the astir cardinal measurement of a company’s performance. Changes implicit clip tin uncover opportunities and challenges successful expanding its addressable marketplace and reaching caller customers. Comparing gross betwixt companies successful the aforesaid manufacture tin beryllium precise adjuvant successful assessing competitory positioning.

Amazon.com vs Walmart Revenue chart

Amazon.com vs Walmart Revenue illustration

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Quarterly Revenue for Amazon and Walmart

Quarter (Period End)

Amazon Revenue

Walmart Revenue

Q2 2024

$148.0 cardinal (period ended June 2024)

$161.5 cardinal (period ended April 2024)

Q3 2024

$158.9 cardinal (period ended Sept. 2024)

$169.3 cardinal (period ended July 2024)

Q4 2024

$187.8 cardinal (period ended Dec. 2024)

$169.6 cardinal (period ended Oct. 2024)

Q1 2025

$155.7 cardinal (period ended March 2025)

$180.6 cardinal (period ended Jan. 2025)

Q2 2025

$167.7 cardinal (period ended June 2025)

$165.6 cardinal (period ended April 2025)

Q3 2025

$180.2 cardinal (period ended Sept. 2025)

$177.4 cardinal (period ended July 2025)

Q4 2025

$213.4 cardinal (period ended Dec. 2025)

$179.5 cardinal (period ended Oct. 2025)

Q1 2026

$181.5 cardinal (period ended March 2026)

$190.7 cardinal (period ended Jan. 2026)

Data source: Company filings. Data arsenic of May 10, 2026.

Foolish Take

Walmart has benefited from its monolithic store base, reaching $713 cardinal successful trailing-12-month revenue. But Amazon conscionable deed an important milestone. Over the past 4 quarters, the e-commerce and unreality person deed $742 cardinal successful trailing revenue, eclipsing Walmart for the archetypal time.

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