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.
| Digital Realty Trust | Walmart | Apple | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow The FY2025 10-K's own competitive record cuts both ways. Item 1 says a "high-quality, highly interconnected global portfolio such as ours could not be easily replicated today on a cost-competitive basis," yet Item 1A concedes that competitors have "significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources and more ready access to capital" and that as rivals keep developing space, "rental rates may be reduced or we may face delays in leasing." A durable advantage that its own filing says new supply can price against is bounded, not unassailable. | narrow Graded on the Item 1A text this run could read from the FY2026 10-K, which is where the filing argues hardest against a wide band. It says "each of our segments competes for customers, employees, digital prominence, products and services" with local, regional, national and global physical, eCommerce and omnichannel retailers, social commerce platforms, wholesale club operators, retail intermediaries "and emerging agentic shopping tools and platforms," that "the omnichannel retail landscape is highly competitive and rapidly evolving, and the entry of new, well-funded competitors, or more rapid development of AI capabilities and agentic tools by these competitors ... may increase competitive pressures," and concedes that "for eCommerce and other internet-based businesses, newer or smaller businesses may be better able to innovate and compete with us" and that there "can be no assurance" Walmart can adopt AI "as quickly or effectively as our competitors." It also warns of retail consolidation producing rivals with "improved financial resources, improved access to merchandise, greater market penetration." The filing claims no market share, rank or scale advantage anywhere in the text available here, and its own competitive-landscape discussion sits in Item 1, which the cached read-through returned only as a cross-reference; a wider band would not be sourced. | narrow Argued, not assumed. The FY2025 10-K does evidence a real moat in margin: total gross margin percentage rose 44.1% (2023) to 46.2% (2024) to 46.9% (2025) in markets the same filing describes as characterised by 'aggressive price competition, downward pressure on gross margins.' But the filing bounds the claim itself: it concedes 'a minority market share in the global smartphone, personal computer, tablet and wearables markets,' it discloses no retention, active-device or installed-base figure anywhere (its only 'large installed bases of active devices' reference describes competitors), and it discloses that both of the highest-margin layers are already being cut down by force -- Apple is 'currently subject to a court order preventing it from imposing any commission or fee on certain purchases' on the U.S. App Store storefront, has had to open 'alternative methods of distribution for iOS and iPadOS apps, alternative payment processing' in the EU, and warns that a reversal on appeal in the Google search case could impose remedies 'prohibiting Google from offering the Company commercial terms for search distribution.' A moat that earns 46.9% gross margin but whose most profitable layer is being narrowed by two courts and a regulator is narrow, not wide. |
| Moat type | network effects Item 1 attributes the hard-to-replicate part of the portfolio to connectivity rather than to real estate: "the network density, interconnection infrastructure and connectivity-centric customers in certain of our data centers have led to the organic formation of densely connected data communities that are difficult for competitors to replicate." That community sits on over 232,000 cross connects in over 55 metros, so each network and cloud that lands makes the same building worth more to the next tenant. | cost scale What the readable text does describe as durable is physical and logistical scale rather than lock-in or IP. It says Walmart sources "from a wide variety of domestic and international suppliers," that global sourcing is "an important factor in our financial performance," and that finding suppliers able to supply "in the large volumes we may demand" is itself a challenge; it describes a network of stores, clubs and distribution and fulfillment centers in which "many products available for purchase online can be picked up by the customer or member at a local Walmart store or Sam's Club, which provides additional customer traffic at such stores and clubs"; and it lists "supply chain automation and enhancements" among the investments backing the strategy. The first competitive lever it names is "the prices at which we sell our merchandise." The filing offers no intangibles or switching-cost claim beyond noting that protection of its trademarks, copyrights, domain names, patents and trade secrets "may not be available in every jurisdiction." | switching costs The 10-K locates the durable advantage in an integrated stack and its third-party ecosystem, not in patents: it names 'a strong third-party software and accessories ecosystem' among the principal competitive factors and states the Company 'designs and develops nearly the entire solution for its products, including the hardware, operating system, numerous software applications and related services,' while explicitly disclaiming IP as the source -- 'No single intellectual property right is solely responsible for protecting the Company's products and services' and the Company 'relies primarily on the innovative skills, technical competence and marketing abilities of its personnel.' The remedies now in force confirm the diagnosis negatively: the same filing describes being required to permit alternative distribution and alternative payment processing in the EU and being barred from charging commission on certain linked-out purchases in the U.S. -- remedies aimed squarely at lowering the cost of leaving Apple's rails, which is what a switching-cost moat is. |
| Leadership | co leader Item 1 claims the title of "the largest global provider of cloud- and carrier-neutral data center, colocation and interconnection solutions," but the Competition section names Equinix and NTT as operators of properties "similar to ours in some of the same metropolitan areas," plus Global Switch and regional operators abroad — a shared top tier on the company's own telling, not a solitary one. | co leader The 10-K text available this run asserts no rank or share for Walmart. The band reflects two things the filing does say: that its strategy is meant to let it "maintain or grow our overall market position" across segments that already compete at global scale, and that it does not describe itself as ahead in the channels that matter most to it - "for eCommerce and other internet-based businesses, newer or smaller businesses may be better able to innovate and compete with us," and on AI adoption "there can be no assurance that these investments will deliver the anticipated benefits, or that we will be able to adopt and leverage these technologies as quickly or effectively as our competitors." Treat this band as bounded by the missing Item 1 competition discussion, not as a measured position. | fast follower Apple leads on integration and margin rather than on units, and the filing says so: it 'has a minority market share in the global smartphone, personal computer, tablet and wearables markets,' while competitors have 'broad product lines, low-priced products, large installed bases of active devices, and large customer bases.' On the AI axis that defines this graph, Apple is following rather than leading -- it now licenses a rival's frontier models to power Siri (see the Apple Intelligence / Siri row and its citation) while pushing its own advantage down into silicon. |
| Pricing power | strong FY2025 renewals signed re-priced upward in every bucket — +27.0% on greater-than-1 MW space ($146 to $186 per square foot), +4.6% on 0-1 MW ($268 to $280) and +43.0% on other ($49 to $71) — and MD&A expects average aggregate rental rates on 2026 renewals to be positive against the rates currently paid for the same space "on a GAAP basis and on a cash basis." On costs, the filing says utilities expense "is our largest expense category" and that "the vast majority of the expense is passed directly through to our customers," which it credits with significantly mitigating exposure to power-cost increases rather than removing it. The cap: Item 1A warns competitor development could still force rates down. | weak The filing names price first among the ways it competes - "we compete in a variety of ways, including the prices at which we sell our merchandise" - and states that higher supplier labour and material costs may "adversely impact product margins ... that we are unable, or choose not, to pass on to our customers." It adds that macro conditions can "change the mix of products we sell to any one or more markets with a lower average gross margin" and "result in slower inventory turnover and greater markdowns of inventory." In health and wellness the price is set by counterparties, not by Walmart: "a large majority of our retail pharmacy net sales are generated by filling prescriptions for which we receive payment through established contractual relationships with third-party payers and payment administrators, such as private insurers, governmental agencies and pharmacy benefit managers," exposing it to "reductions in the third-party reimbursement rates for drugs." | strong The 10-K's own gross-margin table: total gross margin percentage 44.1% (2023) to 46.2% (2024) to 46.9% (2025), with Services at 75.4% versus Products at 36.8%, and iPhone net sales rising 'due to higher net sales of Pro models' -- mix moving up, not down. Held against the filing's own hedge that 'gross margins will be subject to volatility and downward pressure,' the realised trend is the stronger evidence. |
| Summary | Digital Realty rents space, power and connectivity rather than compute: at 2025 year-end its portfolio held 310 data centers and roughly 57.6 million rentable square feet across more than 55 metros in over 30 countries, about 84.7% leased, serving more than 5,000 customers. Two different businesses sit inside that footprint. The greater-than-1 MW wholesale side is a capital-and-power race — 769 MW of projects underway with 64% pre-leased, and land that "could accommodate over 3,500 megawatts of additional data center capacity" — where the 10-K names Equinix, NTT, Global Switch and "various private operators" as rivals and warns that added supply can push rents down. The colocation and interconnection side is the defended half: over 232,000 cross connects and the "densely connected data communities" Item 1 says competitors cannot easily replicate, reinforced by contracts the filing describes as generally running 5-10+ years on large deployments and by improvements "installed at our customers' expense." FY2025 leasing supports that read — renewals signed re-priced +27.0% on greater-than-1 MW space and +4.6% on 0-1 MW — while customer concentration is the offsetting exposure, with the largest customer at roughly 11.7% of annualized recurring revenue. | In the FY2026 10-K text readable this run, Walmart describes an "enterprise strategy, which combines traditional retail, membership models, marketplaces, financial services, health and wellness and other customer and business services into a series of interconnected assets to make it seamless for customers to interact with us," carried by stores, clubs and distribution and fulfillment centers that double as pickup and delivery nodes and by continuing investment in eCommerce, AI and supply chain automation. The filing sets its own limits on that: it calls the omnichannel landscape "highly competitive and rapidly evolving," warns that well-funded entrants and faster AI or agentic tooling by rivals may increase pressure, that smaller businesses may out-innovate it online, and that "a greater concentration of eCommerce sales, including increasing online grocery sales and the increasing role of AI-enabled platforms in product search, discovery, advertising and purchasing, could result in a reduction in the amount of traffic in our stores and clubs." On economics it concedes supplier cost increases it may be "unable, or choose not, to pass on to our customers," and it points investors to "advertising and other higher-margin initiatives (which are expected to help drive our operating income growth at a rate faster than net sales over the long term)" rather than to price. | Apple's moat is usually asserted through the ecosystem; the FY2025 10-K neither quantifies nor claims retention, so the evidence has to be read elsewhere in the filing. Where it does show is mix and margin: Services reached $109.2B of $416.2B net sales (+14%) at a 75.4% gross margin against 36.8% on Products, so 26% of revenue delivered $82.3B of the $195.2B total gross margin, and iPhone grew 'due to higher net sales of Pro models.' That profit concentration is also the vulnerability the filing itself flags: Apple 'earns revenue from licensing arrangements with Google LLC and other companies to offer their search services on the Company's platforms,' arrangements 'currently subject to government investigations and legal proceedings' after Google was found to have violated U.S. antitrust laws on August 5, 2024 and the D.C. District Court ordered remedies on September 2, 2025 -- with the 10-K warning that a reversal on appeal could impose DOJ's proposed remedies 'prohibiting Google from offering the Company commercial terms for search distribution,' which 'could materially adversely affect the Company's ability to earn revenue from such licensing arrangements.' Apple never discloses the size of that payment in the filing -- the concentration is admitted but not measured. Alongside it, the App Store toll has already been reduced in both jurisdictions. What is not in dispute is the vertical integration: Apple designs the silicon and now the cellular modem, and uses 'custom components available from only one source.' Read together: a genuine, margin-visible switching-cost moat around an integrated stack, with its two most profitable layers under active legal reduction. |
| Chain position | Landlord to the AI stack — sells the space, power and interconnection that cloud, network and enterprise tenants run compute in (Oracle, IBM, Meta Platforms, AT&T, Comcast and Lumen are among the customers named in Item 1), with roughly 2.9 GW of total in-place IT capacity. | A retailer that also intermediates: it sells its own sourced merchandise, hosts third-party marketplace sellers for whom it may provide "fulfillment, inventory management, tax collection, payment processing, content," sells digital advertising against that traffic, dispenses prescriptions under PBM and payer contracts, and offers financial services "including through our digital channels, stores and clubs, as well as our OnePay fintech venture." | Applications-layer name in the AI chain: the 10-K describes designing 'nearly the entire solution' and using custom components 'available from only one source,' making Apple a large, concentrated buyer of leading-edge silicon rather than a supplier of AI compute to anyone else. |
| Products (share / barrier) |
|
|
|
| Long-horizon vote | +0.17 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.05 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.11 at weight 0.20 · swarm bullish Editorial prior, not backtested. |