Walmart Becomes First Retailer To Hit Trillion Dollar Mark

Walmart, the iconic American retailer, has shattered expectations and rewritten the playbook for traditional retail by reaching a $1 trillion market valuation on February 3, 2026. This milestone, reported by Reuters, BBC, and Al Jazeera, propels Walmart into an elite club previously dominated by technology giants like Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, and Microsoft. In fact, Walmart stands as the first brick-and-mortar retailer—and only the second non-tech U.S. company after Berkshire Hathaway—to ever cross this threshold.

Walmart’s journey to this moment has been anything but conventional. Once seen as the quintessential “old economy” company, Walmart has in recent years transformed itself into a digital powerhouse. The company’s shares soared by more than 3 percent on the day of the announcement, capping a year-long rally that saw its stock rise nearly 26 percent, according to Reuters. As of that Tuesday, the stock traded at $127.10, reflecting several stock splits, including a 3-for-1 split in February 2024.

Driving this triumph is a blend of old-school retail grit and new-age digital strategy. Walmart operates 11,000 stores across 19 countries, including 4,600 in the United States alone, and has built its reputation on low prices and wide accessibility. But the company’s recent embrace of artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce, and digital partnerships has fundamentally altered its trajectory. Over the past five years, Walmart has expanded its online marketplace to more than half a billion items, launched one-hour delivery, and created Walmart+ to rival Amazon Prime—moves that have resonated with both core low-income shoppers and higher-income customers seeking value and convenience.

“Walmart is masterful at brick-and-mortar retail and remains highly competitive with Amazon. I love that because it shows consumerism is still alive and well. Five years ago, the narrative was the fall of the mall and the decline of retail. This confirms the opposite,” Brett Rose, CEO of United National Consumer Suppliers, told Al Jazeera.

Walmart’s digital transformation has been turbocharged by aggressive AI investments. Billions of dollars have flowed into automating supply chains, stocking fresher produce, speeding up deliveries, and improving inventory forecasting. These efforts have paid off handsomely: Walmart has beaten U.S. same-store sales estimates for 15 consecutive quarters, as compiled by LSEG and reported by Reuters. In October 2025, the company announced a partnership with OpenAI, aiming to enhance customer and Sam’s Club member experiences with AI-powered chatbots that help plan meals, restock essentials, and discover new products. Walmart also partnered with Google to embed shopping tools directly into search chatbots, further closing the tech gap with Amazon.

“As AI rapidly reshapes retail, we are centralizing our platforms to accelerate shared capabilities, freeing up our operating segments to be more focused on and closer to our customers and members,” Walmart stated last month. John Furner, who began his tenure as CEO on February 1, 2026, is a vocal champion of these AI initiatives, signaling that the company’s tech-driven momentum is just getting started.

The company’s move to transfer its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the tech-heavy Nasdaq in late 2025 was another bold declaration of Walmart’s digital ambitions. The transfer coincided with its addition to the Nasdaq-100, further cementing its reputation as a forward-thinking retailer. “It really is a remarkable accomplishment. We think of trillion-dollar market caps as being a tech-stock phenomenon, but Walmart is a gritty ‘old-economy’ company,” Charles Sizemore, a Walmart investor, told Reuters.

Walmart’s appeal spans the income spectrum. As inflation persists and the job market cools, higher earners have begun “trading down” to Walmart’s value offerings, while the company continues to serve its core base of budget-conscious shoppers. According to BBC, Walmart’s value proposition has made it “better insulated than just about anybody,” as Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey put it. With $1 in every $4 spent on groceries in the U.S. flowing through Walmart, the retailer’s reach is unparalleled in American households.

Internationally, Walmart’s strategic shift toward India has also paid dividends. Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s February 2, 2026, announcement of a trade deal with India—slashing tariffs from 50 percent to 18 percent—Walmart’s supply chain and domestic market position in India have strengthened. The company jumped from sourcing 2 percent of its global exports from India in 2018 to 25 percent in 2023, with a goal of reaching $10 billion in goods from India by 2027. Meanwhile, its reliance on Chinese goods has dropped from 80 percent to 60 percent. These moves have not only diversified Walmart’s supply chain but also positioned it to capitalize on growth in emerging markets.

Walmart’s e-commerce business has been a major growth driver. In the three months ending October 31, 2025, U.S. e-commerce sales jumped 28 percent, buoyed by online orders and digital advertising. The company has built a $4 billion advertising business, boosting margins and giving it an operational edge. “What you need to look at is that Walmart has successfully become a marketplace, not as big as Amazon, but big enough to give it a run for its money,” said Rose to Al Jazeera.

Of course, not everyone is bullish on Walmart’s future. Despite the historic milestone, some Wall Street analysts have begun removing Walmart from their top-pick lists, citing concerns over its lofty valuation. As Barron’s noted, the company’s rapid ascent has made some investors wary about its future growth prospects, especially as competition from Amazon, Aldi, and Costco intensifies.

Yet, few can deny the scale of Walmart’s achievement. From its humble beginnings in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962, to its public debut in 1970, and its addition to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1997, Walmart’s evolution has mirrored the changing face of American retail. Today, as it prepares to release its next earnings report on February 19, 2026, Walmart stands not just as a retail giant, but as a symbol of how even the most traditional companies can reinvent themselves for the digital age.

The $1 trillion milestone is more than just a number—it’s a testament to adaptability, innovation, and the enduring power of value in a world where technology and tradition increasingly intersect.