Compare moats

The FY2025 10-K's own Competition section says the markets for Adobe's solutions are characterized by 'limited barriers to entry, short product lifecycles, customer price sensitivity ... and the frequent entry of new solutions or competitors', and Item 1A adds that Adobe 'face[s] increasing competition from companies offering generative and agentic AI solutions, including but not limited to prompt-based and multi-modal creation and editing, document productivity and understanding' - the two categories that carry the Digital Media segment. That disclosed contestability caps the moat below wide, while the same filing's industry-standard app designations and 89% consolidated gross margin keep it well above none.

source: sec.gov

Baidu's search franchise still leads, but it earns less each year and the company has written part of it down. Its 2025 annual report on Form 20-F (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1329099/000119312526109289/d38065d20f.htm) says revenue from online marketing services "declined in 2024 and 2025, primarily due to our ongoing AI transformation, which impacted the monetization approach, as well as unfavorable macroeconomic conditions", and that "the increasing prevalence of AI-powered search engines and virtual assistants is fundamentally altering user behavior", so that users "may have less need to click on traditional search results or sponsored links". In 2025 it recognised RMB16.2 billion of impairment losses on its Core asset group after a recoverability test it attributes to "fluctuations in the external environment, in particular the rapid iteration of AI technology, and changes in our internal operations", and reported an operating loss of RMB5.8 billion (operating income of RMB10.4 billion excluding the impairment). The decline continued into 2026: the second-quarter results (https://ir.baidu.com/news-releases/news-release-details/baidu-announces-second-quarter-2026-results, 2026-08-18) show what Baidu calls Legacy Business revenue at RMB10.4 billion, down 23% year over year, and the CEO says "our online marketing business remains under pressure". The lead itself is still large by an independent count, with StatCounter putting Baidu at 46.65% of China's search engine market in September 2026. A lead that monetises less each year, and has needed an impairment, is an eroding moat.

source: sec.gov

Micron sits in a three-firm DRAM oligopoly (with Samsung and SK hynix), holds "over 60,000 patents" and leading-edge process technology (industry-first 1-gamma EUV DRAM node in FY2025), yet its FY2025 10-K concedes competitors "may use aggressive pricing" and "may have a larger market share," and consolidated gross margin swung from negative 9% (FY2023) to 40% (FY2025) — a real but commodity-cyclical, non-durable advantage.

source: sec.gov

The 10-K frames Adobe's differentiation as an integrated ecosystem the customer's work lives inside: Creative Cloud Pro subscribers get 'cloud storage to easily sync, access, collaborate and share their work, files and assets', the AI platform offers a choice of models 'without the friction of switching between workflows and platforms', and on the enterprise side 'Our competitive differentiation comes from the increased value we provide customers by integrating the Adobe Experience Platform with our comprehensive set of solutions'. 96% of FY2025 revenue is subscription, with $22.52B of remaining performance obligations, up 13% year over year.

source: sec.gov

The moat Baidu is losing is a traffic-driven network. The 20-F says it competes for users and customers "on the basis of user traffic, cyber security, quality (relevance) of search (and other marketing and advertising) results, availability and user experience of products and services, distribution channels and the number of associated third-party websites", and that its content ecosystem depends on attracting creators "by leveraging our user traffic and enhance user engagement through the provision of attractive content, so as to create a virtuous cycle". Advertisers use its P4P platform "to bid for priority placement of paid sponsored links and reach users who search for information related to their products or services", and Baidu Union partners carry its search engine and ads on their own properties. AI answers are weakening that loop: the same filing warns that conversational tools risk "reducing traffic to our platforms and diminishing the inventory and effectiveness of our search-based advertising", and Baidu App's monthly active users were 644 million in June 2026 (second-quarter results) against 679 million in December 2025 (20-F).

source: sec.gov

The 10-K roots Micron's edge in proprietary technology and IP: "over 60,000 patents" granted as of Aug 28, 2025, "significant investments to develop proprietary product and process technology," the industry's first 1-gamma (EUV) DRAM node, ninth-generation G9 NAND, and HBM4 samples to key AI customers.

source: sec.gov

In the segment that is 74% of FY2025 revenue ($17.65B of $23.77B) the 10-K asserts leadership outright: Illustrator 'our industry-standard vector graphics app', After Effects 'our industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects app', Acrobat 'a leading document productivity app', and 'category and brand leadership' in the Competition section. The claim does not extend to the whole company - the same section says the marketing solutions 'face broad competition from large, established enterprise software and cloud companies'.

source: sec.gov

Baidu leads search by an independent count, but not the AI businesses that now make up half of its core revenue. StatCounter (https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/china, September 2026 figures) puts Baidu at 46.65% of China's search engine market across all platforms, against 21.76% for Bing, and at 60.15% on mobile, though on desktop it shows Bing ahead at 41.27% to Baidu's 28.32%. In AI cloud, the 20-F cites IDC's ranking of Baidu AI Cloud as "the No.1 AI cloud provider for the sixth consecutive year" in China's AI public cloud market for 2024, but that figure is relayed by Baidu and covers 2024, and IDC data reported by KrASIA (https://kr-asia.com/how-bytedances-volcano-engine-holds-nearly-half-of-chinas-maas-market, 2026-05-13) put ByteDance's Volcano Engine at 49.5% of China's model-as-a-service market in 2025. In models, Artificial Analysis's leaderboard (https://artificialanalysis.ai/leaderboards/models, read 2026-10-10) gives ERNIE 5.0 Thinking Preview an estimated Intelligence Index of 14, against 45 for Alibaba's Qwen3.8 Max (0902) and Z AI's GLM-5.3 (max). A clear lead in search alongside a contested AI cloud position and a lagging model family makes Baidu a co-leader rather than a clear leader.

source: sec.gov

A member of the three-supplier DRAM oligopoly and at the technology frontier (industry-first 1-gamma EUV node), but the smallest of the three by share — the 10-K acknowledges competitors "may have a larger market share" — and a later entrant scaling up in HBM behind SK hynix and Samsung.

source: sec.gov

Per the same 10-K's segment table, Digital Media earned a 95% gross profit margin in FY2025 (96% FY2024, 95% FY2023) and consolidated gross margin held at 88%/89%/89% across FY2023-FY2025 while revenue grew 11% to $23.77B. 96% of revenue is subscription and remaining performance obligations reached $22.52B, up 13%. Item 1A's warning of 'downward pressure on pricing and gross margins' has not shown up in realized margin.

source: sec.gov

Costs are rising faster than revenue, and Baidu has been cutting model prices. In 2025, per the 20-F, Baidu General Business revenue fell 2% to RMB102.5 billion while its cost of revenues rose 15% from RMB44.8 billion to RMB51.5 billion, "mainly related to development of cloud services", and the filing warns of "downward pressure on our operating margin". Online marketing revenue fell in both 2024 and 2025, and Legacy Business revenue was down 23% year over year in the second quarter of 2026. Baidu says it released ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo "delivering improved performance at significantly lower pricing, making them among the most cost-effective options on the market", and IDC data reported by KrASIA says the model-as-a-service leader Volcano Engine's "per-token price was below the industry average". The one premium claim, that AI-native marketing customers are "willing to pay a premium", is Baidu's own, and that line's revenue was "approximately flat year over year" in the second quarter of 2026.

source: sec.gov

Memory is a commodity with cyclical ASPs: the 10-K flags "volatility in average selling prices" and competitors' "aggressive pricing" as key risks, and consolidated gross margin swung from -9% (FY2023) to 22% (FY2024) to 40% (FY2025), marking Micron largely as a cyclical price-taker; contract-based, supply-tight HBM is a partial exception.

source: sec.gov

An AI-application layer company that both builds its own commercially safe Firefly foundation models and licenses 'an extensive ecosystem of third-party models', distributing generative AI into creative, document and marketing workflows.

Baidu spans several layers of China's AI stack. Its 20-F describes "a full AI stack of four layers, including cloud infrastructure, deep learning framework developed in-house, foundation models, and applications", with AI infrastructure "powered by a diverse mix of domestic and international high-performance computing resources, including our own self-developed AI computing architecture" and its own Baidu AI Chip. It sells GPU Cloud capacity and Qianfan model services to enterprises and the public sector, with a Qianfan model library that includes "leading third-party and open-sourced models" as well as ERNIE, and it funds this largely from online marketing sold to advertisers through search and feed.

US-based supplier of the memory tier of the AI stack — DRAM, HBM and NAND; the 10-K notes cloud servers for AI and data-centric workloads "require significantly increasing quantities of DRAM, including HBM," and Micron sampled HBM4 to power next-generation AI platforms.

• Adobe Acrobat solutions (Acrobat Studio, Acrobat Pro, Acrobat Standard, Acrobat Reader) Leader · Moderate source: sec.gov
• Adobe Experience Platform and Experience Cloud apps (Real-Time CDP, Journey Optimizer, Experience Manager, Analytics, Marketo Engage, Commerce, Workfront) Unknown · Moderate source: sec.gov
• Adobe Express Unknown · Low source: sec.gov
• Adobe Firefly solutions (Firefly models, Firefly app, Custom Models, Foundry, Firefly Services) Unknown · Moderate source: sec.gov
• Adobe Substance 3D Collection Unknown · Moderate source: sec.gov
• Creative Cloud Pro flagship apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Lightroom) Leader · Moderate source: sec.gov

• Apollo Go robotaxi Top 3 · Moderate source: ir.baidu.com
• Baidu AI Cloud Infra (GPU Cloud and Qianfan) Top 3 · Moderate source: sec.gov
• Baidu Search and Baidu App (online marketing) Leader · Moderate source: gs.statcounter.com
• ERNIE foundation models Unknown · Low source: artificialanalysis.ai

• DRAM Top 3 · Deep source: sec.gov
• High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) Challenger · Deep source: sec.gov
• NAND flash storage Challenger · Deep source: sec.gov

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