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.
| Dell Technologies | KLA Corporation | GlobalFoundries | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow The FY2026 10-K describes advantages that are real but shallow, and a revenue mix that is diluting them. It names them as 'our end-to-end solutions portfolio, go-to-market capabilities, supply chain, and global services' and calls the direct sales channel 'a significant competitive advantage', while conceding it faces 'ongoing product and price competition in all areas of our business from both branded and generic competitors' and, on components, that 'any disruption that may occur because of our dependence on single- or limited-source vendors would not disproportionately disadvantage us relative to our competitors' - i.e. no differentiated supply position. The filing's own margin table shows where the franchise actually earns: total gross margin fell from 23.8% of net revenue in Fiscal 2024 to 22.2% in Fiscal 2025 to 20.0% in Fiscal 2026, and inside that, product gross margin fell 17.5% to 15.8% to 13.7% while services gross margin rose 40.8% to 41.4% to 44.8%. Narrow rather than none, because the high-margin services and storage core is intact and its margin rate improved; narrow rather than wide, because the line that is growing carries a 13.7% product gross margin and the filing attributes the whole decline to it. | wide The fiscal 2026 10-K states 'The strength of our competitive positions in many of our existing markets is primarily due to our leading technology', and frames process control as 'an essential enabler' of the yield ramp in fabs the filing says now cost 'well above $10 billion'. | narrow The FY2025 20-F gives a measured lock-in: approximately 63% of 2025 wafer shipment volume was single-sourced business - products GF says "can only be manufactured with our technology or cannot be manufactured elsewhere without significant customer redesigns" - and long-term agreements carried an aggregate remaining revenue commitment of approximately $11 billion at 31 December 2025, as "binding, multi-year, reciprocal minimum purchase and supply commitments". That advantage is bounded by admissions in the same filing: "some of our competitors may offer more advanced or differentiated technologies than we do and some have greater access to capital and substantially greater production capacity, research and development... including access to government subsidies"; China's mature-node "foundry capacity is expected to grow faster than expected demand at those nodes"; and GF "renegotiated a number of LTAs with certain of our customers, including in 2025, as a result of which some of our LTAs now have longer commitment periods... and some of our LTAs have lower pricing or volume commitments than originally negotiated". Gross margin of 24.9% in 2025 ($1,690m on $6,791m of net revenue) on essentially flat revenue is the economics of a position that is defended rather than uncontested. |
| Moat type | cost scale The filing locates the advantage in scale of distribution and supply, not in proprietary rights. It states 'Our world-class supply chain operates at significant scale', describes a direct sales force plus a partner network that produced 'approximately 40% of our net revenue' in Fiscal 2026, and lists supply chain and global services among its competitive advantages. The IP alternative is ruled out in the same document: with 25,859 granted patents held at January 30, 2026, Dell still says 'we are not substantially dependent on any single patent or group of related patents.' | intangibles ip The 10-K reports over 9,100 active patents and over 3,600 pending applications with terms running through 2045, alongside proprietary process-control software (Klarity, I-PAT, aiSIGHT) that turns inspection and metrology data into yield learning. | switching costs The filing rules out scale as the source: GF concedes competitors with "substantially greater production capacity, research and development" and its four fabs held roughly 2.8 million wafers per annum of installed capacity at end-2025 against a $6.8bn revenue base. The mechanism it names instead is the cost of moving a qualified design - "[g]iven the time and costs associated with moving a single-sourced product to a competitor, clients are more likely to continue awarding us single-source contracts for such products" - and it is quantified at approximately 63% of 2025 wafer shipment volume. It is contractually reinforced by the ~$11bn of remaining LTA revenue commitment, which GF says continues to matter "for certain longer term, more durable end markets, such as automotive", where 21% of 2025 net revenue ($1,410m) now sits. |
| Leadership | co leader The 10-K's only positioning claim is the unquantified 'Dell Technologies is a leader in the global technology industry'; it names no competitor and gives no share anywhere. The band therefore rests on disclosed absolute scale - ISG net revenue of 60,826m and CSG net revenue of 50,984m in Fiscal 2026, operations in over 170 countries - set against the filing's own admission that hyperscale Infrastructure-as-a-Service buyers 'often buy their infrastructure directly from original design manufacturers', which caps how much of the market Dell can lead at all. | clear leader The 10-K opens by describing KLA as a supplier of 'industry-leading equipment and services' and attributes its competitive positions 'in many of our existing markets' primarily to leading technology; named competitors are Applied Materials, ASML, Hitachi High-Tech, Lasertec and Onto Innovation. | fast follower The 20-F places GF inside a group of "five major foundries (including four scaled pure-play foundries) that accounted for the vast majority of worldwide foundry revenue in 2025", naming TSMC first among key competitors along with UMC and SMIC, and separately conceding competitors with "more advanced or differentiated technologies than we do" and "substantially greater production capacity, research and development, marketing and other resources". GF does not compete for the leading edge at all; its stated pillars are differentiated RF, FDX, silicon photonics, power and feature-rich CMOS plus geographic diversity. That is an established, scaled participant operating inside a pace set elsewhere, not one setting it, and not one shut out of the top tier. |
| Pricing power | weak The filing describes price-taking and its own tables confirm it. It reports 'ongoing product and price competition in all areas of our business from both branded and generic competitors' and says 'We closely monitor market pricing, including the effect of foreign exchange rate movements, in an effort to provide the best value for our customers.' Total gross margin fell from 23.8% of net revenue in Fiscal 2024 to 22.2% in Fiscal 2025 to 20.0% in Fiscal 2026, with product gross margin down to 13.7%; CSG operating margin fell three straight years (7.6%, 6.1%, 5.6% of segment revenue); and non-GAAP operating income as a percentage of net revenue 'decreased 10 basis points to 8.8%' even as revenue grew 19%. Consolidated operating margin did rise 70 basis points to 7.2%, but the filing credits a lower operating expense rate for that, not price. | strong Services were approximately 23% of fiscal 2026 total revenues on an installed base that recurs, backlog nearly doubled to $12.57 billion, and SEC-reported net income was 35.6% of revenue in fiscal 2026 with operating income at 41.2% of revenue in fiscal 2025. | moderate Gross margin was 24.9% in 2025 ($1,690m on $6,791m) versus 24.5% in 2024 ($1,651m on $6,750m) - held, not expanded, even though average shipment utilization across the global fabs rose from 77% to 86%, so most of the volume gain was absorbed rather than dropping through. The filing states outright that "the market prices for technology and services tend to fall over time, except in times of extreme supply shortage", and discloses LTAs renegotiated in 2025 to "lower pricing or volume commitments than originally negotiated". Against that, GF says wafer price "varies significantly across technology platforms" and that devices with "richer feature sets, higher performance, better yields and greater system-level integration... generally command higher wafer prices". Price-setting inside designed-in single-sourced sockets, price-taking at the competitive margin. |
| Summary | The AI-server line is enormous and it is not a moat - the FY2026 10-K says so in its own margin bridge. AI-optimized servers net revenue went 1,873m in Fiscal 2024 to 9,286m in Fiscal 2025 to 24,683m in Fiscal 2026 (+396% then +166%), lifting total ISG revenue to 60,826m (+40%). Over the same year ISG operating income as a percentage of segment revenue fell 110 basis points to 11.7% 'due to a decline in gross margin rate that outpaced the decline in operating expense rate. Gross margin rate decreased primarily as the result of a shift in mix towards our AI-optimized servers offerings', and the Fiscal 2027 outlook repeats the expectation of 'margin rate pressure resulting from a continuing shift in mix towards our AI-optimized servers offerings'. The cleanest test of pass-through is the filing's product-versus-services split: product net revenue grew 27% to 90,405m at a 13.7% gross margin (down from 15.8% and 17.5%), while services net revenue fell 4% to 23,133m at a 44.8% gross margin. The AI boom arrived entirely as thin product revenue and did not pull the profitable services book along with it. What Dell adds is described plainly as integration: it uses contract manufacturers, buys components from suppliers and 'subsequently sell[s] those components to the manufacturer', and its own 'manufacturing process consists of assembly, software installation, functional testing, and quality control'. The bypass is named too: 'We also face competition from non-traditional IT companies, including large Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers, that often buy their infrastructure directly from original design manufacturers. Competitive pressures could increase if customers choose to move existing workloads to these providers.' What survives as a moat is the part an ODM cannot sell an enterprise: a direct sales force and account teams, a global service and support footprint whose gross margin rate is still rising, storage that held revenue within 3% of flat through the whole mix shift, and Dell Payment Solutions financing that produces multiyear recurring arrangements. | KLA sells the inspection, metrology and yield-management layer a fab must run to reach volume production: the 10-K says accelerating the yield ramp ahead of competitors is critical to chipmakers' profitability, and backlog nearly doubled from $7.86 billion to $12.57 billion in the year to June 30, 2026 'due to strong demand driven by the AI infrastructure buildout'. | GlobalFoundries is a pure-play specialty foundry that deliberately does not contest the leading edge. Its FY2025 20-F frames the business around six differentiated technology lines - feature-rich CMOS, ultra-low-power CMOS (FinFET and FDX), silicon photonics, RF, power, and, new in 2025, processor IP via the MIPS acquisition - manufactured at four fabs in Malta NY, Burlington VT, Dresden and Singapore, which GF describes as making it "the only scaled foundry with a global manufacturing footprint spanning the United States, Europe, and Asia operating for more than a decade". The defence that shows up in the numbers is design lock-in rather than cost: approximately 63% of 2025 wafer shipment volume was single-sourced, and ~$11bn of long-term agreement revenue commitment remained at year-end. What limits it is visible in the same document - competitors with more capital, more capacity and, in some cases, more advanced technology; mature-node capacity in China expected to outgrow demand at 28nm and larger; TSMC, Samsung, Intel, Texas Instruments and UMC all building in the United States, Europe or Singapore, which erodes the geographic-diversity argument GF calls "one of our key advantages". Pricing reflects that balance: 2025 gross margin of 24.9% against 24.5% in 2024 even as shipment utilization rose from 77% to 86%, with some LTAs renegotiated to lower pricing. AI exposure is real but indirect - Communications, Infrastructure & Data Center was 11% of 2025 net revenue, and GF's AI content is optical interconnect, RF, sensing, power and edge processor IP rather than accelerator logic. |
| Chain position | Integrator between accelerator and component suppliers and enterprise or sovereign buyers: the 10-K says Dell purchases components from suppliers, sells them on to contract manufacturers, and performs 'assembly, software installation, functional testing, and quality control', then reaches customers through a direct sales force and a partner network that generated about 40% of Fiscal 2026 net revenue. | Sits beside the process steps rather than in them — it measures and inspects what deposition, etch and lithography produce, and TSMC alone exceeded 10% of revenue in each of the last three fiscal years. | Pure-play specialty foundry. Inputs are silicon and specialised SOI wafers bought under multiple long-term agreements with principal suppliers, "the largest of which is Soitec", plus externally sourced EDA tools and third-party IP. Output is finished semiconductor wafers, approximately 89% of 2025 net revenue, sold to fabless designers and IDMs and delivered through the GlobalSolutions ecosystem of IP providers, EDA vendors, OSAT partners and design-service firms; the remaining ~11% is photomasks, sourcing and post-fab services, and IP licence and royalty income. Manufacturing sits at four sites - Malta NY, Burlington VT, Dresden and Singapore - with roughly 239,000 square metres of clean room and about 2.8 million wafers per annum installed capacity at end-2025. Position in the AI chain is one step removed from accelerators: Communications, Infrastructure & Data Center was 11% of 2025 net revenue ($745m), with content in optical interconnect, RF front-ends, timing and power, alongside edge-AI processor IP from the MIPS acquisition. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.05 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.42 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.06 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |