Amazon Tops Revenue, But Its Net Profit Is Only Two-Thirds of Apple's
Amazon, the top company by revenue, posted a net profit of just two-thirds that of fourth-ranked Apple. A look at the top 10 U.S.-listed companies by revenue as of September 21, 2026 clearly shows how scale and profitability move in opposite directions.
The Revenue Rankings: Retail and Healthcare Lead the Pack
Amazon ranked first with annual revenue of $716.9 billion. Second-place Walmart followed closely at $713.2 billion — a gap of just $3.7 billion, making the two retail giants effectively equal in scale. From third-place UnitedHealth ($447.6 billion) onward, revenue falls to the $400 billion range, followed by Apple ($416.2 billion), Alphabet ($402.8 billion), and Microsoft ($331.8 billion).
The composition of the top 10 itself is meaningful: retail (Amazon, Walmart, Costco), healthcare (UnitedHealth), energy (ExxonMobil), finance (JPMorgan), and five Big Tech companies are all mixed together. It is a list that mirrors the real flows of the U.S. economy.
The Profit Gap: Revenue Is Not the Same as Profit
Reordered by net profit, the rankings change completely. Microsoft earned the most at $133.7 billion, followed by Alphabet ($132.2 billion), NVIDIA ($120.1 billion), and Apple ($112.0 billion). Four Big Tech companies swept the top four spots in net profit.
The gap becomes even starker in net profit margins. NVIDIA, with revenue of $215.9 billion — the smallest among the top 10 — posts a net profit margin above 55%. Alphabet and Microsoft stand at roughly 32% and 40%, respectively. By contrast, revenue leaders Amazon (about 10.8%) and Walmart (about 3.1%) remain in the mid-teens and low single digits, respectively. It is the nature of retail: high volumes on thin margins. Amazon's $77.7 billion net profit, despite its top revenue, is more than 30% less than Apple's $112.0 billion — even though Apple's revenue is over $500 billion lower.
Market capitalization directly reflects this profitability gap. Despite ranking only 10th in revenue, NVIDIA carries a market cap of $5.3 trillion, the highest valuation in the top 10, followed by Apple ($4.92 trillion), Alphabet ($4.25 trillion), and Microsoft ($3.70 trillion). Walmart's market cap, at $849.8 billion, is only a third of Amazon's ($2.71 trillion) — evidence that the market prices companies not on revenue size but on profit-generating power.
Expectations Priced Into Stocks: Over- and Undervaluation Through EPS
Earnings per share (EPS) measures the profit each share generates. JPMorgan has the highest EPS at $23.33, followed by UnitedHealth ($15.57) and Alphabet ($19.94). Dividing market cap by EPS to derive a rough price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) reveals how each company is valued. UnitedHealth, with a $336.8 billion market cap and EPS of $15.57, trades at a relatively low price relative to its earnings. NVIDIA's outsized margins relative to its revenue underpin its valuation, but with a market cap more than double its revenue, the market has clearly priced in future growth as well.
Markets look not only at the size of profits but at their quality and sustainability. As Walter Winchell noted, success is often followed by a fall — the question is whether today's high valuations will translate into earnings growth.
Investment Implications and Outlook
Two points deserve investors' attention from this data. First is the mismatch between the revenue rankings and the profit rankings: a clear division of labor is emerging between retail and healthcare companies that dominate volume and Big Tech companies that dominate profit. Second is the unusual nature of NVIDIA's earnings structure. Generating $120.1 billion in net profit from $215.9 billion in revenue rests on its dominance in semiconductor design — margins that will be hard to sustain.
The key thing to watch going forward is whether Amazon can improve its margins. As high-margin businesses like Amazon Web Services (AWS) grow in share, the revenue leader could also climb the profit rankings. Conversely, if Big Tech's lofty valuations fail to be validated by earnings, a reshuffling of market cap rankings could follow. Only by reading both axes — the scale shown by revenue and the quality shown by profit — can investors accurately assess the current state of the U.S. market.
