Should Investors Worry About Symbotic's Walmart Exposure?

A significant portion of Symbotic’s SYM revenues is derived from its partnership with retailer Walmart WMT, which serves as the largest customer. In January 2025, Symbotic acquired the Advanced Systems and Robotics business from Walmart and signed a Master Automation Agreement that provides for the development, manufacture and installation of automated systems for online pickup and delivery at the latter’s retail stores.

In fiscal 2025 (ended Sept. 27, 2025), more than 84% of Symbotic's total revenues were generated from Walmart. This massive concentration is associated with significant risks, implying that the company’s revenue growth and stability are highly dependent on a single customer's capital expenditure plans and ongoing relationship. 

Symbotic is being well-served by its sizable backlog, which offers strong visibility into future revenue generation. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, Symbotic had a backlog of $22.5 billion, of which the agreements with Walmart and GreenBox comprised the vast majority. In 2023, SoftBank Group Corp. and Symbotic announced the establishment of GreenBox Systems, a new joint venture to address the more than $500 billion annual warehouse-as-a-service market opportunity.

While no immediate risk is anticipated, investors should remain mindful of Symbotic’s customer concentration exposure. This dependence is not welcome for Symbotic, as the loss of, or a reduction in orders from, these key partners could severely impact revenues.

To reduce dependence, especially on Walmart, Symbotic is pursuing several strategies to diversify its customer base and expand market reach. The company is focusing on enhancing its system to cater to a broader range of industries. In September 2025, Symbotic inked a deal with Nyobolt concerning its SymBot autonomous mobile robots.

The UK-based Nyobolt is known for its high-power and ultra-fast charging solutions. The association with Nyobolt will enable Symbotic to enhance both performance and durability across its warehouse automation systems. The newly adopted batteries deliver six times more energy capacity while being 40% lighter than the ultracapacitors currently powering SymBot mobile robots. This improvement reduces overall weight, broadens operating windows and significantly boosts system reliability. 

Another Company With Customer Concentration Risk

Customer concentration is a major concern for Cirrus Logic CRUS. While it has a broad global customer base, the loss of any key customer, a significant decline in sales or selling prices to a key customer, or price reductions to maintain key relationships could materially impact Cirrus Logic’s revenue, margins, earnings and overall business performance. The company may have to pay the price for heavy reliance on Apple AAPL.

Cirrus Logic’s largest customer is Apple, representing nearly 89% of its fiscal 2025 sales. Any decline in iPhone sales is likely to pose a key threat to its top-line results. Ongoing weakness in the Android market is expected to weigh on overall momentum and raise concerns about sustaining revenues from this channel.

SYM’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of SYM have surged in double digits in a year, easily outperforming its industry.

1-Year Price Comparison

From a valuation perspective, Symbotic is trading at a premium compared with the industry average. In terms of price-to-sales (F12M), SYM is trading at 10.98X, much higher than the industry’s average.

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SYM’s first-quarter, second-quarter, full-year fiscal 2026 and 2027 earnings have remained stable over the past 60 days.

SYM’s Zacks Rank

SYM currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. 

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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