Walmart Continues To Be The World’s Largest Company By Revenue

Collectively, the world’s 10 largest companies by revenue generate roughly $4.6 trillion in annual sales, exceeding the GDP of countries like Japan and Germany.

Over the past five years, corporate balance sheets have swelled amid robust consumer demand, recovering economies, and strong labor markets. At the same time, stock markets have become increasingly concentrated, with the largest companies gaining market share through pricing power and economies of scale.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the top 10 Fortune Global 500 companies since 2019, based on data from Fortune. For the rankings, Fortune included public and private companies that report financial data. The latest 2024 ranking is based on total revenues in companies’ fiscal years ending on or before March 31, 2024.

Ranked: The World’s Leading Corporate Giants by Revenue

Below, we show the largest firms by revenue around the world:

Walmart, with over 10,600 stores worldwide, has maintained its position as the world’s largest company by revenue for 12 consecutive years.

With slim profit margin of just 2.4%, Walmart is increasingly focused on digital advertising revenues. Today, Walmart commands 6.8% of U.S. retail ad spend, which is projected to reach $3.7 billion in 2024. Over the past two quarters, Walmart’s ad revenue growth has exceeded Amazon, driven largely by a growing number of marketplace sellers.

As America’s second-largest retailer, Amazon follows next in line, with $574.8 billion in revenues. Since 2019, revenues have more than doubled, driven by 310 million global customers using its online marketplace.

However, Amazon Web Services (AWS), fuels the majority of earnings given its high profit margins and strong growth. Today, AWS commands 31% of the global cloud services market.

Ranking in third is Chinese utility firm, State Grid, the largest employer in the world. The state-owned firm has regularly stood in the top 10 rankings, given its expansive global reach. Today, the utility giant has investments in projects across Australia, Brazil, Portugal, Italy and the Philippines.

Overall, Apple has the healthiest profit margins among the top 10 countries, at 25%. It is followed closely by oil giant Saudi Aramco, whose cheap production costs and vast oil reserves led profit margins to reach 24% in the latest fiscal year.

To learn more about this topic from a market cap perspective, check out this graphic on the world’s 25 largest companies by market capitalization in 2024.