Putting Wal-Mart's numbers in perspective

Size matters, at least for Wal-Mart.

Stock in the international retail giant fell Thursday after its morning earnings announcement. Wal-Mart beat fiscal fourth-quarter estimates by 3 cents a share, but total revenue for fiscal 2016 fell almost 1 percent due largely to the strong dollar's effect on international markets.

Still, Wal-Mart is one of the biggest companies in the world. Its total revenue dipped, but domestically it rose 3.6 percent from the previous year, totaling $298 billion.

That's the equivalent of $900 spending per each American at Wal-Mart last year.

And Wal-Mart's heft is not just financial, it's physical too. Its 4,600+ U.S. stores occupied almost 700 million square feet. That's roughly enough space for 11,800 football fields. That means the entire population of Buffalo, New York, could suit up, split into teams and play football against each other simultaneously in Wal-Marts across the country.

The company's total revenue for fiscal 2016 was $482.1 billion. That's enough to buy a gallon of milk every day for every person in Brazil for two years, based on the $2.89 price per gallon at the North Bergen, New Jersey, Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart's costs and expenses hit $458 billion for the year, which is bigger than the budgets of all but four U.S. government departments. Here's what the rankings would be:

1) Health and Human Services
2) Social Security
3) Treasury
4) Defense
5) Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart's 2.2 million employees, or "associates" as they're called, would give it quite a large army. Here's how global army sizes compare:

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