Compare moats
Up to three covered companies, band by band. Every call is a curated editorial judgment, never a disclosed figure — and every band carries its cited basis.
| ASE Technology Holding | Applied Digital | Coca-Cola | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow The FY2025 20-F argues ASEH out-competes IDM in-house lines because serving "a large base of customers across a wide range of products" lets it "reduce costs and shorten production cycles through high-capacity utilization and process expertise" and gives its equipment "a longer useful life" — a real but bounded edge, since the same filing calls the global packaging and testing market "highly competitive", notes "most of our customers obtain services from more than one source", flags foundry encroachment ("TSMC has offered advanced packaging technologies such as integrated fan-out"), and warns that "some of our competitors may have superior financial, marketing, manufacturing, research and development and technological resources than we do", offering P.R.C. government support of its domestic semiconductor companies as the example. | none The FY2026 10-K (filed 2026-07-29) shows contracted revenue, not a demonstrated competitive edge. About 1,410 MW is leased under 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable base terms worth about $36.2 billion, but only about 100 MW of the roughly 1.5 GW that is contracted and either operating or under construction was operating and earning revenue at May 31, 2026, and Item 1A says "lessees may have the right to terminate applicable leases if there are significant delays in construction." Item 1A also concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time," and the Competition section names 13 power-advantaged developers the company competes with. Signed leases give revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable advantage. | wide The FY2025 10-K's own competitive-strengths list leads with "leading brands with high levels of consumer recognition and loyalty" and "a worldwide network of bottlers and distributors of Company products", and the trademarks behind those brands are "valid as long as they are in use and/or their registrations are properly maintained" — an IP right the filing gives no expiry. Gross margin rose 59.5% to 61.1% to 61.6% across FY2023-FY2025 on the XBRL in the same annual filings, in an industry the filing itself calls "highly competitive". |
| Moat type | cost scale The advantage the 20-F actually claims is unit economics from volume, not lock-in: specialization and "economies of scale by providing services to a large base of customers", high capacity utilization spreading "relatively high fixed costs", and equipment that lasts longer because of the breadth of the order book. Capital intensity reinforces it — the filing says "semiconductor businesses are capital intensive and require significant investment in expensive equipment manufactured by a limited number of vendors", with the equipment market itself "characterized by intense demand, limited supply, and long delivery cycles". | none The 10-K claims three advantages: power-advantaged sites (it believes securing power and interconnection ahead of demand is 'the principal constraint on new HPC capacity and a core differentiator for us from many of our competitors'), a standardized 'franchise-style' design, and hyperscaler master service and master telecom service agreements 'that are difficult to obtain.' The filing does not show any of them to be durable. Its Competition section says competition 'centers on securing and developing sites with access to large-scale, reliable, and cost-competitive power and interconnection' and names 13 power-advantaged developers going after the same leases, and Item 1A concedes it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases are take-or-pay and non-cancellable, so a tenant leaving for convenience owes 'the full remaining contractual value,' but that is contractual lock-in on each lease rather than a moat source, so no moat type is assigned. | intangibles ip The filing locates the durable assets in intellectual property rather than scale: "our sparkling beverage and other beverage formulas are among the important trade secrets of our Company", and "We also own numerous trademarks that are very important to our business", which are "valid as long as they are in use and/or their registrations are properly maintained" — unlike a patent, no fixed term. |
| Leadership | co leader The 20-F calls ASEH "a leading provider of semiconductor manufacturing services in assembly and testing" and "a market leader in SiP technologies from design to assembly with high-volume manufacturing", and says it has "established ourselves as a leader through the successful introduction of leading-edge advanced packaging solutions, which have played a pivotal role in bringing advanced ASIC and HBM products to the marketplace" — but the hedged "we believe we are among the leaders in such packaging processes and technologies", alongside named consolidating rivals (Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology/STATS ChipPAC, Amkor/J-Devices, Tianshui Huatian Technology/Unisem) and TSMC's InFO, describes shared rather than sole leadership. | behind The 10-K makes no leadership claim and gives no ranking or share figure. Item 1A concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time" and that some rivals have "substantially greater liquidity and financial resources than we do." Its Competition section places APLD against established operators (Digital Realty, Equinix), hyperscalers that build their own capacity, independent developers and 13 named power-advantaged developers (IREN, Cipher Digital, TeraWulf, Hut 8, Riot, CleanSpark, HIVE, Core Scientific, Bitdeer, Galaxy Digital, Fermi, Keel Infrastructure, MARA). | co leader The filing claims leading BRANDS but never category leadership, and names "PepsiCo, Inc." as "a primary competitor" in many countries, alongside Nestle S.A., Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., Danone S.A., Suntory Beverage & Food Limited, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Kirin Holdings, Heineken N.V., Diageo plc and Red Bull GmbH. |
| Pricing power | weak The 20-F states the industry has "a general trend toward declining prices for products and services of a given technology over time" and that ASEH's own "average selling prices of our packaging and testing services have experienced sharp declines" under "intense price competition". FY2025 consolidated gross margin was 17.7% (up from 16.3%), and management attributes the gain to "higher packaging and testing revenue mix and higher factory utilization" rather than price; the EMS half earned a 9.2% gross margin on raw-material costs equal to 78.7% of EMS revenue, and the five largest customers supplied 46.5% of 2025 operating revenues. | weak Item 1A says "Due to the limited number of hyperscalers, we expect that a limited number of customers will continue to account for a high percentage of our revenue for the foreseeable future," and that if customers' equipment usage declines or they discontinue use of its facilities, APLD "may be compelled to lower our lease prices in some instances or risk losing a significant customer." One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. Take-or-pay, non-cancellable terms protect contracted revenue over the base term, and Note 19 reports a $39.1M HPC Hosting segment profit on $385.3M of segment revenue in FY2026, but those terms are agreed with a small group of concentrated buyers. | strong Three consecutive years of gross-margin expansion — 59.5% (FY2023), 61.1% (FY2024), 61.6% (FY2025) — through an inflationary period. The filing discloses the countervailing force itself: competitive pressures "may restrict our and our bottlers' ability to increase prices". |
| Summary | ASEH sells turnkey assembly and test at a scale most captive IDM lines cannot match: the 20-F says it is "involved in all stages of the semiconductor manufacturing process except circuit design and wafer fabrication", and leans on Taiwan, "currently the largest center for outsourced semiconductor manufacturing in the world", plus a "strategic alliance with TSMC", to sit next to the foundries its customers already use. The durable part is cost position from utilization, not customer capture — the filing concedes customers multi-source and that foundries are moving into advanced packaging from above. | Applied Digital designs, builds and operates purpose-built, liquid-cooled HPC data centers, which it calls 'AI factories', and leases the capacity to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. At May 31, 2026 its 10-K lists five campuses (Polaris Forge 1-3 and Delta Forge 1-2) with about 1,410 MW contracted under roughly 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable leases worth about $36.2 billion over the base terms. The filing claims three sources of advantage: it controls power-advantaged sites, it uses a standardized 'franchise-style' design built to deliver about 150 MW in about 14 to 18 months, and it holds hyperscaler master agreements that are 'difficult to obtain.' The same document shows how early the company is. About 100 MW was operating and earning revenue. One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. It competes with Digital Realty, Equinix, hyperscalers that build their own capacity and 13 named power-advantaged developers, and it concedes that it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases give long-dated revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable competitive advantage. | The asset is the trademarks and the secret formulas behind them; the bottling network is how they reach a shelf. The 10-K's own strengths list names both. What caps the moat sits on the same page: the competitive challenges include "a concentrated retail sector with powerful buyers able to freely choose among Company products, products of competitive beverage suppliers and individual retailers' own store or private-label beverage brands". |
| Chain position | Back-end contractor to the AI silicon chain: the 20-F ties its FOCoS, FOCoS-Bridge and 2.5D/3D lines to "ASICs and HBM for HPC, networking, server and AI/ML applications" and "AI accelerators for AI training", and warns that a slowdown in AI demand would leave "lower utilization rates for our specialized equipment". | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Outside this graph's supply chain: an AI-adopting incumbent whose beverage business buys AI as a tool rather than supplying it. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.05 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.35 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |