Largest Retailers in the US
The latest data from the National Retail Federation shows that Walmart continues to lead as the top US retailer.
In 2020, the company brought in retail sales of $430.82 billion in the US—an 8.7 percent year-over-year increase. Not only that, but Walmart also increased the US share of its sales worldwide by three percentage points. In 2019, 76 percent of its global sales came from the US. This number increased to 79 percent in 2020.
The top US retailer, however, reduced its store footprint across the country, lowering the number of stores from 5,355 stores in 2019 to 5,253 in 2020.
Walmart is expected to see even stronger growth in 2021. Already, recent fiscal data shows the top US retailer generated $137.7 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2021, a 5.6 percent annual increase.
Most of this revenue growth came from the US market, where net sales grew 9.5 percent from $85.2 billion in Q2 2020 to $93.3 billion in Q2 2021.
The second on the list of the largest retailers in the US is Amazon. With $187.27 billion in US sales in 2020, this was a whopping 33.7 percent annual increase—nearly four times faster than the top US retailer’s growth.
Like Walmart, Amazon’s US retail sales also made up the majority of its global sales. In 2020, 71 percent of the sales it generated worldwide came from the US.
After Amazon, the third-biggest retailer in the US is The Kroger Co. The Cincinnati-based company’s US retail sales grew 8.3 percent to $131.57 billion in 2020, despite having reduced the number of stores countrywide from 3,003 in 2019 to 2,922 in 2020.
The Home Depot and Costco Wholesale complete the list of the five biggest retailers in the US. The Home Depot’s 2020 US sales grew 21.3 percent to $121.26 billion, while Costco’s grew 9.3 percent to $121.22 billion.
Here are the remaining five largest retailers in the US and their 2020 retail sales figures.
- Walgreens Boots Alliance: $104.70 billion
- Target: $92.40 billion
- CVS Health Corporation: $89.53 billion
- Lowe’s Companies: $82.88 billion
- Albertsons Companies: $69.73 billion
