World's Largest U.S. Retail Chains in 2015

Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Home Depot, Target - Which U.S. Retailer Ranks Highest?

World's Largest U.S. Retail Chains 2015, All Biggest American Retailers — ••• Creative Commons public domain photo

Updated April 27, 2017

The annual list of World's Largest Retail Chains always contains all of the biggest and most recognized American retailers. But even though the U.S. is considered to be the dominant country in the global retail industry, the 2015 list of Largest U.S. Retail Chains is shorter, compared to the 2014 Largest U.S. Retail Chains list. With 12 U.S. retail chains falling off, and just four new qualified additions, the 2015 World's Largest U.S. Retail Chains list is a little less U.S. dominant.

Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Home Depot and Target remain the leaders of the U.S. retail industry. Overall, 76 of the 250 retail chains with the largest annual revenue in the world are American retailers. That means that 30% of the global retail chains that qualified for the 2015 Word's Largest Retail Chains list are based in the U.S. That's down from 33% from the 2014 global retail revenue rankings.

All of this is according to the 2015 Global Powers of Retailing report, which is published each year by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and STORES Magazine.The 2015 Global Powers list includes privately-held U.S. retail companies as well as U.S. government-run military retail organizations, which will make it significantly different from the 2015 Fortune 500 list. Also, the 2015 Global Powers of Retailing report is based on 2013 revenue figures, so it lags behind and is a little less relevant to those interested in the U.S. retail industry than the annual Retail Fortune 500 rankings.

What the annual Global Powers reports do provide, however, is a global ranking number which provides a comparative perspective on retailing trends worldwide. While the global ranking of the largest retail chains in the world usually remains relatively unchanged from year to year, there were big shifts in the rankings of the 2015 World's Largest Retailers on the Global Powers list.

None of the most dramatic year-over-year changes for U.S. retailers on the 2015 Global Powers list will be surprising to anyone who closely followed the U.S. retail industry in the 2013 calendar year.

But the value of the Global Powers list each year is in having an easy reference which reveals how changes in the U.S. retail industry compare to changes with retail industries in countries around the world.

The most significant changes between the 2014 and 2015 Global Powers reports for the largest U.S. retail chains were:

Costco became the second largest retail chain in the world. Although the annual revenue of the #1 Walmart retail chain is still four times higher than Costco's annual revenue, having U.S. retail chains in the top two positions is historically significant.
Albertson's made a meteoric rise from #240 on the 2014 list to #43 on the 2015 list after an acquisition of 870 stores caused the chain to grow 489.7%.
The largest U.S. convenience store chains - Sheetz, the Pantry, Casey's General, Wawa, QuikTrip, and RaceTrac - fell off the list of largest U.S. retail chains. This was not because of revenue drops, but because the Global Powers list makers determined that retail operations which derive a majority of retail revenue from fuel would not be included on the 2015 list, which is a reversal of its 2014 parameters and methodology.

Radio Shack and Dell didn't qualify for the 2015 largest U.S. retailer list, which is a reflection of nothing more than a struggle with maintaining retail relevance and a shrinking customer base.

This is a list of the 2015 Top 100 U.S. based retail companies included on the World's Largest Retailers list published each year by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and STORES Magazine. This list of the largest U.S. retail chains is arranged according to the ranking each of the biggest and best U.S. retail companies received on the 2014 Global Powers of Retailing report, which is based on retail sales revenue for FY 2013.

The number in the left column is the global ranking number assigned to the company, compared to the 250 largest retail chains and companies worldwide. Use the links to find out more about the news, jobs, and retailing information for each of these Top 100 U.S. based retail companies. More rankings of the largest U.S. retail chains are also included on the next page.