Amazon Dwarfs U.S. Retailers in Terms of Market Cap

When Amazon held its IPO in 1997, the leadership at retail companies such as Walmart, Costco and Target probably didn’t lose any sleep over what that upstart online bookstore from Seattle might one day do to their businesses. 25 years later, Amazon is selling pretty much everything online and is constantly expanding into new categories, taking more business away from its offline-first rivals.

As our chart illustrates, Amazon is now by far the largest retail company in the United States, at least in terms of market capitalization. Currently valued at $458 billion, Amazon is worth nearly twice as much as Walmart, which is still the largest retail chain in the country in terms of sales.