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.
| ASM International | ASE Technology Holding | Qualcomm | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow The 2025 annual report (published 2026-03-12) says 'ASM is the leader in the fast-growing single-wafer ALD market – with a market share of 55%+ (ASM estimate, Investor Day 2025)'. It says ASM 'maintained leadership with our market share surpassing 55%' as the industry moved from FinFET to GAA. And it says that 'Based on the breadth of our R&D engagements and critical production-tool-of-record (PTOR) selections already secured in 2025, we expect to at least maintain our market share' into the 1.4nm node. The Q2 2026 results (https://www.asm.com/media/y0mkxj21/20260728-asm-reports-second-quarter-2026-results.pdf) say the 1.4nm node is on track for its first meaningful contribution in the second half of 2026, 'reflecting increased market share gains in both ALD and Epi'. 2025 gross margin was 51.8%. That is a strong, profitable position, but every share figure behind it is ASM's own estimate or expectation, and no independent share source supports it, so the rating is narrow rather than wide. The exposures also weigh: the five largest customers took about 53.6% of 2025 revenue and China more than 30%, and the report describes the main competitors as 'much larger companies from the United States and Asia'. | 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. | narrow Qualcomm's advantage is real but concentrated in one segment. The FY2025 10-K (filed 2025-11-05) describes its portfolio as "the most widely and extensively licensed in the industry" and says the industry "generally recognizes that any company seeking to develop, manufacture and/or sell certain cellular products requires a license or other rights to use our patents". That licensing leg produced $5,582M of FY2025 revenue against $38,367M at QCT, where Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi are all named in the vertical-integration risk factor and Apple already "utilizes its own modem... in certain of its smartphones". The filing frames the QCT loss as expected rather than realised. |
| Moat type | intangibles ip The report grounds the ALD lead in accumulated process know-how and patents rather than unit cost: 'ASM has the broadest portfolio of ALD products with innovative ALD reactor designs. Our strength in chemistries and applications using new materials means our customers can meet advanced node technology challenges.' It also cites a LexisNexis PatentSight study finding that 'ASM holds a strong and impactful patent portfolio on its core strength of ALD as measured by both Competitive Impact and Patent Asset Index'. Switching friction reinforces this. Tools enter fabs through PTOR selection, the report notes that 'Failing a customer during a production ramp could create significant problems for them', and installed systems are supported 'with a view to having them in production 24/7 for 20+ years'. But ASM wins those PTOR slots node by node on process capability, which makes IP the primary source. | 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". | intangibles ip The durable asset is intellectual property accumulated since Qualcomm's founding "in 1985". The patents have "broad coverage in many countries, including Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States and countries in Europe" and are licensed "to hundreds of companies on industry-accepted terms", with royalties set as "a percentage of the wholesale (i.e., licensee's) selling price... subject to per unit minimums and/or per unit caps". R&D of $9,042M equalled 20% of revenues. Manufacturing is fabless "other than for certain of our RFFE modules and RF filter products", for which Qualcomm owns fabs in Germany and Singapore. |
| Leadership | co leader In single-wafer ALD, which is more than half of equipment sales, the report calls ASM 'the leader' with a 55%+ share. That share is ASM's own estimate; the Investor Day 2025 deck (https://www.asm.com/media/m3jhkm12/asm_investor_day_2025.pdf) sources it to 'ASM internal analysis and TechInsights'. With no independent share source, the band is held at co_leader rather than clear_leader. ASM does not lead every line: 'ASM has the number two share in the Epi equipment market', and in PECVD and vertical furnaces it is 'focused on niche portions of the market'. | 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. | co leader Leadership is clear in licensing and contested in silicon. The 10-K names no rival licensing programme and asserts the portfolio is "the most widely and extensively licensed in the industry", while calling QCT's industries "intensely competitive" and naming eleven competitors (Broadcom, HiSilicon, MediaTek, Mobileye, Nvidia, NXP, Qorvo, Samsung, Skyworks, TI, UNISOC); "continue to be a leader in mobile" appears in a list of things future success depends on, so it reads as aspiration, not share. The band therefore rests on the licensing leg, roughly 13% of revenue. FY2025 10%-plus customers were 21%, 20% and 13%; in 9M FY2026 only two cleared 10%. |
| Pricing power | moderate Gross margin rose from 50.5% to 51.8% in 2025 and was 51.9% in Q2 2026. But the report attributes the 2025 gain to 'a very strong mix, including a continued solid contribution from the Chinese market' and to efficiency programs, not to price. It targets a range of 47% to 51% for 2026-2030, and the Q2 2026 release expects full-year 2026 gross margin 'to be around 51%'. Buyers are concentrated: the 10 largest customers were about 72.3% of 2025 revenue, the five largest about 53.6%, and two customers each contributed more than 10% of total revenue. | 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. | moderate QTL margins held at 72% in FY2025 and 73% in 9M FY2026, though Q3 FY2026 alone slipped to 69% from 71%, and the $111M revenue gain there is attributed to revenues per unit "primarily driven by favorable mix" rather than to price. At QCT, the fall to 26% from 30% is explained by "lower gross margin, primarily driven by higher product cost, partially offset by higher average selling prices" plus lower revenues, so the pressure is cost rather than price; FY2025 handsets rose $2,930M, of which $2.5B came from higher revenue per chipset. Against that, "declining average selling prices" is a standing risk-factor title, "particularly pronounced in emerging regions and China". |
| Summary | ASM International, headquartered in the Netherlands, makes wafer-processing equipment with a focus on deposition: single-wafer ALD, silicon epitaxy, PECVD, vertical furnaces, silicon-carbide epitaxy and, since its acquisition of Axus in December 2025, CMP. Spares & Services made up 23% of 2025 revenue. ALD is the core. It was the largest product line, 'clearly accounting for more than half of our equipment sales', and ASM estimates its single-wafer ALD share at 55%+. The report frames ALD as increasingly necessary, saying 'ALD is the only deposition technology capable of meeting the coverage and film-property requirements for complex 3D structures', and expects ALD layers to grow in GAA transistor stacks, backside-power architectures and future 4F² DRAM. Epitaxy is the second-largest line: the report says ASM holds the number two share there and lifted its leading-edge share from 12% in 2020 to 25% in 2024, both by ASM's own figures. 2025 revenue reached a record €3.2 billion at a gross margin of 51.8%; per the Q2 2026 results, Q2 2026 revenue was €1,003 million at 51.9%. The exposures are customer concentration (the five largest customers were about 53.6% of 2025 revenue), geography (Asia was 80% of revenue and China more than 30%), and export restrictions that the report says are 'impacting our ability to sell and service systems in certain jurisdictions and for certain customers'. | 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. | Qualcomm has two legs pointing in opposite directions. QTL (FY2025 revenue $5,582M, EBT margin 72%) rests on a portfolio the 10-K calls "the most widely and extensively licensed in the industry", with royalties struck on the licensee's wholesale device price under per-unit minimums and caps; its durability is dated in the filing, since "our patent license agreements with key OEMs are generally long-term, with terms expiring at varying dates between fiscal 2027 and 2031", some with binding-arbitration renewal clauses, and Huawei's licence has already expired, removing its royalties from QTL revenue from Q2 FY2025. QCT ($38,367M, 87% of segment revenue) is the leg under pressure: its three 10%-plus customers all build their own silicon, Apple already ships its own modem, and QCT EBT margin fell to 26% in Q3 FY2026 from 30%. |
| Chain position | Upstream wafer-fab-equipment supplier to logic/foundry and memory chipmakers. 'The leading-edge logic/foundry market was the main growth driver for ASM, on the back of 2nm investments' in 2025, advanced-node DRAM was the largest part of memory sales, and Asia was 80% of revenue. | 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". | Every figure and quotation is drawn from the FY2025 10-K and the Q3 FY2026 10-Q. Where the filings state no market share, the share band is left unknown rather than inferred, and barrier bands follow the filings' own language, which states a barrier to entry only for automotive. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.05 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm bearish Editorial prior, not backtested. |