2012 Top 100 U.S. Retailers

Here's an interactive sortable table of the top 100 U.S. retailers, based on 2011 data.  Some of the results include:

1. As expected, Walmart was the No. 1 U.S. retailer for both U.S. and worldwide sales.  Based on its worldwide sales in 2011 of $454 billion, Walmart would rank as the 27th largest economy in the world, behind No. 26 Taiwan's GDP of $467 billion and ahead of No. 28 Argentina's GDP of $448 billion.  Somewhat less expected are the No. 2 retailers for U.S. sales (Kroger) and worldwide sales (Costco).

2. Based on the number of retail stores, Walmart barely makes it into the top 20, coming in at No. 18 with 4,423 stores.  It's no surprise that McDonald's is No. 3 with 14,087 stores and Starbucks is No. 4 with almost 11,000 outlets.  But you might be surprised by the U.S. retailer with the most stores (more than 25,000) and by the second-place retailer with more than 18,000 stores.  

3. Of the top 100 U.S. retailers, more than half (53) have 100% of their stores and sales in the U.S. and no foreign presence at all (e.g. Target, Kroger and most of the grocery chains, Kohls, RiteAid, most of the dollar stores, etc. ).   The retailers with the greatest percentage of foreign sales were IKEA (90.2%), 7-Eleven (80.9%) and Aldi (78.5%). 

4. For sales growth in 2011, Amazon was No. 1 at 42.5%, followed by Verizon Wireless at 37.1% and Apple at 36.9%. 

5. The retailer with the largest growth in the number of stores added in 2011 was 7-Eleven with a 16.3% increase, followed by Nordstrom at 10.3% growth and Best Buy with a 10% increase.

Here's a link to the article that accompanies the chart.