Walmart is the world's largest retailer by what metric?

Walmart is described as the world’s largest retailer by revenue. Revenue means the total money a company brings in from sales before expenses such as wages, rent, taxes, and interest are deducted.

That distinction matters because “largest” can mean several different things. Profit measures what remains after costs; store count measures physical locations; and employee totals measure workforce size. Walmart is also widely noted for its enormous workforce and global store network, but those are different rankings from the revenue comparison.

Walmart’s scale comes from its combination of supercenters, discount stores, grocery operations, Sam’s Club warehouses, and e-commerce. The company’s revenue ranking has also appeared in broader lists of the world’s largest companies, although positions can change as companies report new financial results. In this question, revenue is the defining metric, not profit, stores, or employees.