While Walmart (WMT) has been the industry leader for many decades when it comes to general retail, there’s been proof as of late that Amazon (AMZN) is coming for its crown.
In February 2025, it was reported that Amazon had dethroned Walmart in quarterly revenue for the first time ever, scoring $187.8 billion in Q4 2024, while Walmart brought in $180.5 billion.
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While Amazon has long been nipping at Walmart’s heels, this marked a new level of competition between the retail giants, and it’s a war that will likely be riveting to watch as it continues to develop.
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In an effort to compete with Amazon’s Prime service, which originally launched in 2005, Walmart launched its own service in 2020 called Walmart+, which offered free shipping, Scan and Go perks in the Walmart app, and fuel discounts at participating stations.
The problem, of course, is that Amazon had a 15-year head start — but that doesn’t mean Walmart shouldn’t aim for a slice of the pie.
That said, Amazon Prime last reported 180 million subscribers as of March 2024, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, while Walmart+ is estimated to have about 17.2 million, per a Morgan Stanley survey.
But it looks like Walmart just might have gained an edge on Amazon.
Walmart’s grocery offerings continue to attract new customers.
Image source: Walmart
Walmart crushes Amazon in one key sector
New data taken over the last year reveals that a survey of Amazon Prime members opted to buy their groceries online from Walmart instead of via Amazon, per Coresight Research.
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The survey, which included 2,004 U.S. consumers Coresight spoke with April, as well as the insights culled from similar-sized groups over a seven-year period, shows that just shy of 60% of Prime subscribers bought groceries online from Walmart in the last year.
In that same period, only 52% of Prime members turned to Amazon for their grocery shopping. But Walmart saw 79% of its Walmart+ subscribers buy groceries online during that time, showing stronger loyalty.
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Online grocery shopping overall is dropping, but just slightly, with Coresight reporting that 53.6% of respondents bought groceries online last year, as compared to 56.3% during the prior year.
The grocery war rages on
While Walmart has long been known for catering to the needs of lower-income customers, it showed a surprising new trend in 2024: it’s also attracting more affluent consumers.
A growing base of new customers drove strong growth for Walmart’s grocery business in the first half of 2024, per data from a Brick Meets Click report called Profiling the Online Shopper: eGrocery Purchase Patterns in the U.S.
In the meantime, Walmart recently shared that it will enrich grocery offerings as part of its new “Store of the Future” rollout, including a Hispanic bakery section, a fresh tortilla maker, a sushi station, and more.
Amazon also is taking steps to continue to pull in grocery customers, such as allowing them to buy items from Amazon.com, Whole Foods, and Amazon Fresh in a single order.