Here's a fun chart from Google Finance: 10-Year Wal-Mart vs Amazon stock performance:
https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...
Here's a fun chart from Google Finance: 10-Year Wal-Mart vs Amazon stock performance:
https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...
http://revenuesandprofits.com/amazon-vs-walmart-revenues-pro...
Amazon needs to grow 5x the size it is today to reach Wal-Mart scale. They can get there and they're growing more quickly which is why the market has AMZN worth $388B market cap vs. $205B for WMT.
Amazon has a long way to go, I believe they can become the first trillion dollar revenue company but it won't be without a fight from Wal-Mart, FedEx/UPS, regional groceriers, Alibaba (I expect to see them in the US market in 2017), etc.
For Amazon to reach WMT revenue, assume WMT stays flat now and AMZN continues to grow at 27% Y/Y it'd be 2022 before the pass WMT in scale. If they average half of their current growth rate over the full period to reach WMT's current scale it won't happen until 2026 -- basically another full decade.
They could have been better, sure, but that's hardly a disaster.