Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2013

High-level Financial Comparison of Wal-Mart ( WMT ) and Amazon (AMZN )

Let’s begin with full disclosure: I own $WMT.   I don’t own $AMZN.   I shop both regularly, particularly the Sam’s Club division of $WMT for numerous products, and principally books and music from $AMZN.   I’m a loyal customer of each. As an investor however, the Amazon valuation continues to baffle me. I’ve compiled some numbers and ratios from each company for the trailing twelve months as of July 31, 2013 for $WMT and June 30 th for $AMZN. To make my job easier, I’m listing Wal-Mart first each time in the following comparisons. Revenue: (in billions) Absolute: $470.0     vs. $66.8 Revenue Growth $:   $12.4   vs. $12.5 Revenue Growth %:   2.7% vs. 23.1%   There is no question that the clear growth winner is Amazon – adding $100 mil more in revenue in the last twelve months despite Wal-Mart’s base size advantage.   And the rate of growth is indeed impressive at almost 10X Wal-Mart’s. Operating income: (in billions) Absolute: $28.0 vs. $0.6 Operat