Largest retailers in the US 2021 | Statista (2024)

FAQs

Who is the largest retailer in the US 2021? ›

Based on retail sales generated in the financial year 2021, Walmart was by far the world's leading retailer with retail revenues reaching over 572 billion U.S. dollars.

The biggest retail company, with TTM revenue of $600.1 billion, is Walmart.

Last year's annual retail sales grew 7% over 2021 and totaled $4.9 trillion. This growth rate is above the pre-pandemic, average annual retail sales growth of 3.6%.

Dollar General operates the most stores in the United States, with 17,348 currently in operation.

As of 2023, Target operates 1,948 stores throughout the United States, and is ranked No. 32 on the 2022 Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations by total revenue.

In summary, Harbor Freight Tools, Inditex, and Burlington are the three fastest-growing retailers in the US in 2021. The fourth- and fifth-fastest-growing retail companies in the US are Dillard's and TJX Companies, growing by 53.2 percent and 51.3 percent, respectively.

Here are the facts about physical retail stores: Dollar General is the largest retailer in the U.S. by store count, with 17,348 stores as of 2021. While Walmart might be the largest retailer by sales, Dollar General is by far the most numerous.

The world's leading retail markets

The United States is home to the top three retail companies of the world, namely Walmart, Amazon, and Costco. In 2022, the total retail market of the United States reached a revenue of over seven trillion U.S. dollars.

This ranking depicts the leading 100 American retailers in 2021, based on U.S. retail sales. Once again, Walmart was the leading American retailer. That year, the company accounted for retail sales of about 460 billion U.S. dollars. Walmart was founded by Samuel Moore Walton (1918-1992) in 1962.

What is the USA fastest growing retailer? ›

Amazon will once again hold first place by a wide margin in 2023, with 37.6% of US retail ecommerce sales compared with the 6.4% of No. 2 Walmart Inc. Amazon has lost share since last year, but that will change in 2024, when its share will increase to 38.0%.

DICK'S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) is one of the biggest outdoor companies in the world. It's a sporting goods company with over 50,000 employees. In 2021, the company launched Public Lands, a chain of stores that focuses on outdoor recreation including camping, hiking, and biking.

The overwhelming majority of retailers are small businesses, with more than 98 percent of all retail companies employing fewer than 50 people.

Total retail sales in the United States were projected to amount to 7.9 trillion U.S. dollars in 2026, up from around 6.6 trillion U.S. dollars in 2021. These figures included e-commerce and retail sales.

The U.S. retail industry is the largest private-sector employer in the country, directly employing about 32 million people (16.0 percent of national total employment) and supporting more than 52 million jobs.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the largest players are Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS), and Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT). We conducted thorough research to pick the biggest retail companies in the world and then ranked them by their latest twelve month revenue.

Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue, and it is also the largest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees. Market cap and revenue numbers are accurate as of March 28, 2023.

Costco has 304,000 employees, with 203,000 of those working in the U.S. Costco generates $222.7 billion of revenue annually. Costco is the sixth-largest retailer in the world and the third-biggest in the US, behind Walmart and Amazon.

This is because Walmart has more than 10,000 stores worldwide and Target a little less than 2,000 at 1,926. And about one-half of Walmart stores are overseas.

Who are the three largest retailers? ›

Like Walmart, Amazon's US retail sales also made up the majority of its global sales. In 2021, 66 percent of the sales it generated worldwide came from the US. After Amazon, the third-biggest retailer in the US is Costco Wholesale.

Amazon is by far the leading U.S. company in the e-commerce space. According to forecasts, online sales through Jeff Bezos' platform were set to reach more than 386 billion dollars in 2021.

For more than two decades, Walmart has topped the list of the world's Top 250 global retailers. The company's retail sales increased by 1.9% year over year in FY2019, fuelled primarily by increases in comparable stores sales in the US.

Walmart is the most popular store in America. More than half of all shoppers in the country visit a Walmart location in a given month. No other U.S. store can claim a majority of Americans as customers.

Target is home to the eighth-largest retail chain in the U.S., with over 350,000 employees in the U.S. and abroad.

Worldwide: Top 10 online stores

Amazon.com is leading the global e-commerce market, with a revenue of US$131,019 million in 2021 worldwide, followed by jd.com with US$118,515 million. Third place is taken by apple.com with a revenue of US$51,950 million.

The National Retail Federation has released its annual Top 100 Retailers list, and Walmart remains in the leading spot, complete with 6.6 percent sales growth between 2020 and 2021 (and U.S. retail sales of $459.51 billion).

The size of a wholesale business is larger than a retail business. In the retail business, the retail shopkeeper can choose the goods freely which is not possible in wholesale business because the goods are to be purchased in bulk. In wholesale business, the capital requirement is higher than in retail business.

Sam Walton's strategy is built on an unshakeable foundation: the lowest prices anytime, anywhere. On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opens the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas. The Walton family owns 24 stores, ringing up $12.7 million in sales.

This statistic shows the number of stores of the leading retailers in the United States in 2021. In that year, Dollar General operated more than 18,000 stores throughout the United States. Walmart was the leading retailer based on U.S. retail sales in 2020.

Is Aldi bigger than Walmart? ›

Aldi has more than 1,800 stores in 35 states and is focused on growing in the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic, Florida and California. It's on track to become America's third largest supermarket chain behind Walmart and Kroger, with 2,500 stores by the end of 2022.

Amazon, Walmart, Apple, and eBay will remain the largest US ecommerce companies in terms of sales. But several retailers will find themselves in new positions within the top 15, including Target, The Home Depot, Costco Wholesale, Carvana, Best Buy, Lowe's, and Wayfair.

In terms of retail, the leading company in the world was Walmart, which generated retail sales of up to 530 billion U.S. dollars in 2018.

Q. Which Indian company is the second fastest-growing retailer in the world, as per the 2022 Deloitte report? Notes: Reliance Retail is the second fastest-growing retailer in the world, according to the 2022 Deloitte report, 'Global Powers of Retailing.

Sporting goods include athletic footwear, exercise equipment, licensed sports merchandise, and athletic apparel, fitness equipment, and much more. The largest sporting goods store in the world is Dick's Sporting Goods.

Keeping within these guidelines, Walmart continues to be the world's largest retailer, both domestically and internationally, with a significant commitment to a new online marketplace and fulfillment model.

The largest department stores in Texas in 2023

Dollar General has the most number of locations with 1,772 locations across 736 cities. Ross Stores has 221 and Aarons has 169 locations in Texas. These three together make 71.76% of the top 10 department stores in Texas.

As of June 2022, Amazon accounted for 37.8 percent of the U.S. e-commerce market, making it by far the leading online retailer the country. Second place was occupied by the e-commerce site of retail chain Walmart, with a 6.3 percent market share, followed in third place by Apple, with 3.9 percent.

Amazon.com is leading the global e-commerce market, with a revenue of US$131,019 million in 2021 worldwide, followed by jd.com with US$118,515 million. Third place is taken by apple.com with a revenue of US$51,950 million.

Is Amazon bigger than Walmart now? ›

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) are the two largest retailers in the world by Market Cap. On a strictly retail revenue basis, Walmart is much bigger than Amazon with retail revenue of $600 billion versus AMZN's $280 billion.