How Much Profit Do the World’s Biggest Companies Keep?

Big Tech dominates the top of the Fortune Global 500 ranking, with Nvidia generating $55.60 in profit for every $100 in revenue, the highest margin among the 30 largest companies. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta each keep more than $30 per $100 in revenue as profit. At the other end, several of the world’s largest retailers, health care companies, and energy firms keep less than $5 per $100.

The gap is striking even among corporate giants. Microsoft generates $36.10 in profit for every $100 in revenue, compared with roughly $3 for Walmart and Costco. Enormous revenue does not necessarily translate into an equally large profit margin. Much of the difference comes down to business models. Software and digital platforms can serve additional customers at relatively low incremental cost, while retailers, manufacturers, and energy companies must continually pay for inventory, labor, raw materials, logistics, or production.

AI Is Rewriting Big Tech’s Business Model

The margins shown above reflect today’s business models, but AI is making many of those models more capital-intensive. Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure. Hyperscaler capital spending is on track to reach $785 billion in 2026 and rise to nearly $1 trillion in 2027. Nvidia is a major beneficiary of this investment. As a dominant supplier of AI chips, it sits at the center of the infrastructure buildout, while its CUDA software ecosystem can make switching to rival chips more difficult for developers. On the flipside, the scale of AI investment is raising capital costs across Big Tech. As infrastructure spending climbs, those costs could begin to reshape the margins that currently put many tech companies near the top of this ranking.