The Top 5 eCommerce Companies Generate Higher Revenues Than Most Countries

In the eCommerce world, billions and trillions of dollars in revenue are regularly discussed. But what does it really mean when a company like Alibaba or Amazon generates trillions of dollars in revenue?

When comparing companies and countries, it is immediately apparent that the world's largest eCommerce companies dwarf even leading countries in terms of the annual revenue they generate. Comparing apples to oranges, how do countries and companies stack up?

The Top 5 eCommerce Companies Dwarf Most Countries

But first things first, the definitions of company revenue and market revenue differ slightly, which is why:

That being said, the ranking shows that Alibaba ranks before the United States in terms of eCommerce revenues. The three entities above the trillion-dollar threshold, China, Alibaba, and the United States, put into perspective the immense size of the business that Alibaba operates in each year. At US$1.1 trillion, it is similar to the entire eCommerce market of the leading countries and exceeds virtually all of them except its own country of operation.

But Amazon is not far behind. The U.S. eCommerce giant generated an eCommerce activity revenue of US$794.8 billion in 2024, just below the market revenue of its home country, the United States. In fact, the top 5 eCommerce companies all generate significantly larger eCommerce revenues than the leading eCommerce markets. That is how powerful their impact is on a global scale.

Ranking Becomes More Intermingled Between Countries and Companies Further Down

The eCommerce countries following from third place on seem relatively small in comparison, despite having market revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The UK follows far behind JD.com with market revenues of US$158.0 billion, ahead of India with US$120.7 billion. South Korea makes the top 10 list with US$117.6 billion. Moving down into the top 20 list, companies and countries intermingle more closely, with Sea Ltd. (Shopee’s parent company) generating US$100.5 billion, shortly after Japan with US$110.0 billion.

You know that you have hit the mark when even the revenues of key markets are dwarfed by your numbers. Of course, the per capita perspective also plays a role, as the reach of both Alibaba and Amazon is so vast that their customer bases exceed the populations of most of the countries in question.