Bloomberg posted an interesting economic update: “Amazon Dethrones Walmart as World’s Biggest Company by Sales“. I saw a few of the comments on this post about how this news spells the end of brick-and-mortar retail. But this is not quite “apples to apples” (Amazon vs Walmart). When we factor out AWS sales from the overall revenue, Walmart eclipses Amazon by $125.2 billion (Walmart = $713.2, Amazon at $588 billion in retail sales). So, I think the jury’s still out on the notion that Amazon is going to completely displace brick-and-mortar retail.
The more important story, from a business sense, is that Amazon, with its wider business model, is more resilient to economic shocks. In the end, I think the real story is which business is more resilient. And I see that lead going to Amazon.
