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.
| CrowdStrike | Applied Digital | ASUSTeK Computer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow Narrow rather than wide because the FY2026 10-K argues both ways and its own risk factors are the harder side: it describes a self-reinforcing data advantage and says "we do not believe any of our competitors currently have a true platform offering equivalent to the Falcon platform", but the same filing calls the market for security and IT operations solutions "intensely competitive, fragmented", warns that "Competitive pricing pressure may reduce our gross profits", and still carries the July 19 Incident as having "had, and is expected to continue to have, an adverse effect on our business, sales, customer and partner relations, reputation" more than two years after it occurred. | 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. | narrow Independent trackers show a brand-led lead that is real in components and absent in mainstream PCs. DigiTimes data reported by Tom's Hardware (2026-05-07) put ASUS's 2025 motherboard sales at 15 million, against 11.5 million for Gigabyte, 11 million for MSI and 4.3 million for ASRock. DigiTimes, via Tom's Hardware (2025-07-28), expected MSI's 5 million graphics-card deliveries in 2025 to tie ASUS for market leadership. In traditional PCs, IDC (2026-07-08) ranks ASUS fifth at 7.4% share in 2Q26 and says the largest vendors, with their buying power, "are best positioned to take share from smaller rivals". The 2025 annual report (English version filed with TWSE on 2026-05-10) itself lists "New competitors entering niche markets—such as gaming laptops, thin-and-light laptops, and creator laptops—impact profit margins" among its disadvantages. A defensible lead in motherboards and a contested one in graphics cards, neither of which protects the whole company. |
| Moat type | network effects The 10-K states the mechanism directly: "The more data that is fed into our Falcon platform, the more intelligent the AI Security Cloud becomes, the stronger our ability to anticipate and counter evolving adversary tradecraft, and the more our customers benefit, creating a powerful network effect that increases the overall value we provide." | 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 annual report frames PC competition as turning on brand and design: "R&D innovation and precise marketing strategies have become the key to creating profit margins and brand moats", a statement about the industry rather than about ASUS alone. Its evidence for ASUS's own brand is a domestic ranking: it reports ASUS "Ranked as the No. 1 'Best Taiwan Global Brand' for the 12th year", a list of Taiwanese brands that the 4Q25 investor deck attributes to Interbrand. It also reports 7,853 patents obtained globally by the end of 2025, with 2025 R&D expenses of NT$24.8 billion, about 3% of revenue; a patent count alone does not show a barrier. For motherboards the report cites scale as well as design: "advantages in economies of scale" and more than 600 million boards sold since 1989. A brand and design edge in a market where two rivals ship 11 million or more boards a year is a narrow source, not a lock. |
| Leadership | co leader Co-leader rather than clear leader because the only claim of platform primacy available is the company's own ("we do not believe any of our competitors currently have a true platform offering equivalent"), while the same 10-K describes a fragmented market and lists seven distinct categories of competitor, from legacy antivirus to network security, cloud security, identity and legacy SIEM vendors. | 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 Independent data differ by segment. ASUS is first in motherboards (DigiTimes via Tom's Hardware, 2026-05-07: 15 million boards in 2025 against 11.5 million for Gigabyte and 11 million for MSI). In graphics cards DigiTimes expected MSI's 2025 deliveries to tie ASUS for market leadership (via Tom's Hardware, 2025-07-28), a forecast without share figures. In traditional PCs it is fifth, at 7.4% in 2Q26 (IDC, 2026-07-08), behind Lenovo at 24.4%, HP at 19.1%, Dell at 13.6% and Apple at 9.9%. The company's own claim of the number one global share in high-end gaming laptops rests on unnamed "research institute estimates" and is not independently sourced here. Overall a co-leader in its component and gaming niches, not the leader of its industry. |
| Pricing power | moderate The 10-K's risk factors state that "Competitive pricing pressure may reduce our gross profits" and that competing successfully may require "aggressive pricing", which is the company's own case against strong pricing power; the offsetting factor it cites is module consolidation on one sensor. | 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. | weak Unaudited brand gross margin was 16.0% in 4Q24, 12.4% in 2Q25, 14.8% in 4Q25, 13.8% in 1Q26 and 16.5% in 2Q26. Brand operating margin in the same quarters was 0.7%, 3.4%, 4.3%, 5.4% and 8.1% (4Q25 and 2Q26 investor decks). The 2025 annual report names new competitors in gaming, thin-and-light and creator laptops as impacting profit margins, and IDC (2026-07-08) says PC "vendors are pushing through price increases faster than demand is dropping", so the 2Q26 rise came with market-wide price increases and does not by itself show an ASUS-specific premium. Gross margins in the low-to-mid teens that swing several points from quarter to quarter. |
| Summary | A single lightweight sensor collects enterprise data once and reuses it across 33 cloud modules, and the pooled telemetry trains the models every customer is then defended by — the 10-K calls this crowdsourced, high-fidelity data "cloud-scale AI" and treats it as the fundamental differentiator from competitors. | 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. | ASUSTeK is a Taiwanese brand company whose 2025 consolidated revenue reached NT$738.9 billion, up 26%, with 3C products 97.98% of the total. Its 4Q25 investor deck splits 2025 brand revenue into 43% gamer, 30% consumer and 27% enterprise. Its defensible ground is components and gaming. Third-party data put it first in motherboards, DigiTimes expected MSI to tie it for first in graphics cards in 2025, and its ROG gaming brand turns 20 in 2026. In mainstream PCs it is the fifth-largest vendor (IDC, 7.4% in 2Q26), facing larger rivals that, per IDC, use their scale to secure memory supply during the shortage. Servers are the fastest-growing line: revenue doubled year on year in 2Q26 and the company guides 3Q26 server revenue up 150% year on year. No tracker share for that business was found. Brand gross margin is double-digit but volatile, at 12.4% in 2Q25 and 16.5% in 2Q26. The board business is cyclical: DigiTimes data show ASUS shipped little more than 5 million motherboards in 1H26. |
| Chain position | AI-native security platform — an adopter and reseller of AI rather than a supplier of AI infrastructure. | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Branded PC, component and server vendor. The annual report lists chipsets, memory, logic ICs, printed circuit boards and LCDs as its main raw materials, with one supplier group ("AV Suppliers") at 31% of 2025 purchases, and says no single customer reached 10% of consolidated net sales. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.05 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |