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.
| MediaTek | Semtech | Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow Counterpoint's public quarterly AP-SoC table, published 8 September 2026, shows MediaTek first in all ten quarters it covers (Q1 2024 through Q2 2026), never below 31%, with the nearest rival never above 30% -- a sustained position, not one good quarter. What the same table does not show is a widening one: the share oscillates inside a 31% to 41% band, the Q1 readings step down 41% (2024), 38% (2025), 33% (2026), and the 31% of Q2 2026 matches the lows already set in Q4 2024 and Q4 2025 rather than breaking them; Q2-on-Q2 the series runs 34%, 36%, 31%. Counterpoint also records MediaTek's shipments down more than 30% year-over-year in the quarter, the mainstream and entry tiers hit by the memory shortage and the premium tier by a 'slowdown in sales of Dimensity 9000 series powered devices.' MediaTek's own 2Q26 remarks show the gross line holding and the operating line not: gross margin 46.2%, down only 0.1 percentage points sequentially and guided at 46% plus or minus 1.5 for Q3, while operating income fell 22.2% year-over-year on revenue up 1.2% as operating expenses rose to NT$47.4 billion from NT$44.5 billion. A first place held for ten quarters without extending it, and earning less on it, is defensible rather than compounding. | narrow Semtech’s FY2026 10-K (fiscal year ended January 25, 2026) supports a narrow moat and no more. On the durable side, it owns the LoRa® radio franchise - “our LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology” - which IoT Analytics’ LPWAN Market 2024 release (https://iot-analytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/INSIGHTS-RELEASE-LPWAN-Market-2024.pdf) ranks first outside China at 41% of LPWAN connections, and it argues that scarce analog talent “has historically made it more difficult for new suppliers in the analog market to quickly develop products and gain significant market share.” On the limiting side, the same filing says its patents do not “create definitive competitive barriers to entry”, that average selling prices “have historically decreased rapidly”, that some customers “can stop incorporating our products into their own products with limited notice to us and suffer little or no penalty”, and that customers in China (including Hong Kong) were 47% of fiscal 2026 net sales. The record is uneven: its income statement shows gross profit of $296,250 thousand on net sales of $868,758 thousand in fiscal 2024, $456,528 thousand on $909,287 thousand in fiscal 2025 and $542,144 thousand on $1,049,975 thousand in fiscal 2026, and the 10-K says difficulties “have adversely impacted” its ability to realise the benefits of the Sierra Wireless acquisition. | none PSMC lost money through the last mature-node downturn and then sold its newest fab. Its 2025 annual report (printed 2026-02-24) records revenue of NT$46.7 billion and 'a net loss after tax of NT$7.8 billion for the year'. Gross profit swung from NT$525,425 thousand in 2024 to a loss of NT$1,536,997 thousand in 2025, 'primarily attributable to an increase in gross loss from operations at the Tongluo Fab'. The report says 'good performance was difficult both in pricing and capacity utilization rates for mature-node wafer foundry services'. PSMC then agreed to sell the Tongluo site and facilities, excluding manufacturing equipment, to Micron. The Register (2026-01-20) reports total cash consideration of US$1.8 billion, against PSMC's earlier statement that it had invested more than NT$300 billion (US$9.5 billion) in the facility. Profits have since recovered: Q2 2026 net income was NT$3,291 million, against a NT$3,334 million loss a year earlier, per the company's September 2026 presentation. The cited sources tie that recovery to memory and wafer price increases, not to a lasting edge. |
| Moat type | intangibles ip MediaTek manufactures nothing itself -- its 2Q26 remarks describe 'deep design-technology co-optimization (DTCO) with TSMC' and close collaboration with advanced-packaging partners -- so the durable asset cannot be plant scale, and the remarks do not claim customer lock-in either. They locate it in a reusable design library: 'Building on our industry-leading IP portfolio, we offer best-in-class, pre-validated subsystems solutions for memory, I/O, and connectivity' -- which, the company says, 'largely reduces design complexity and shortens time to market for our data center customers'. The same remarks itemise 448G SerDes with a Co-Package Copper system solution, CPO development on TSMC's COUPE platform, and an end-to-end 3.5D platform with 'best-in-class 3.5D IP, packaging, and design flows,' and say design wins come 'backed by our industry-leading IPs, deep ecosystem partnerships, and proven execution capabilities'. The spending behind that library shows in the cost line: operating expenses of NT$47.4 billion in the quarter against NT$44.5 billion a year earlier, with the Q3 operating expense ratio guided at 31% plus or minus 2 points. It is the same library MediaTek re-amortises across mobile, edge and now data-center ASIC. | intangibles ip The defensible assets the 10-K describes are intellectual: the LoRa® radio technology, analog and mixed-signal design expertise - “The development of IP and the resulting proprietary products is a critical success factor for us” - and 303 U.S. and 541 foreign patents. The filing itself discounts the patent part (“we do not believe they create definitive competitive barriers to entry”), which leaves the moat in proprietary technology and scarce design know-how rather than in scale or lock-in: Semtech outsources most manufacturing, sold 74% of fiscal 2026 net sales through independent distributors, and its customer agreements “do not require them to purchase a minimum quantity of our products”. | none The cited evidence supports none of the candidate moat sources. Cost: the annual report says its 12-inch aluminum-interconnect dies cost 30% less than 8-inch dies at the same node, yet the company still posted a 2025 gross loss. Switching costs: the report names 'the price and capacity competition of china wafer foundries' as an unfavorable factor. TrendForce (2026-05-07) says customers in HV processes and CIS applications are 'increasingly turning to Chinese foundries for more stable pricing and capacity availability'. Niche memory: PSMC's September 2026 presentation claims shares of 71% in DRAM (≤1Gb) and 74% in pseudo SRAM (≤256Mb), citing 'Company data, Omdia, TrendForce'. No independent source confirming those shares was found. |
| Leadership | co leader Counterpoint has MediaTek ahead of every rival in all ten quarters of its public table -- 31% against Qualcomm's 23% and Apple's 19% in Q2 2026 -- but that count covers smartphone application processors only, and MediaTek's 2Q26 remarks put mobile phone at 41% of group revenue, no longer its largest business. Smart Edge Platforms is larger at 53%, and while the remarks claim 'continued market share gains across connectivity, computing and automotive products', no independent count of those positions appears in the sources used here. In data center MediaTek holds nothing yet: production of its first AI accelerator ASIC is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026, and 15% to 20% is a 2027 target raised from 10% to 15% a quarter earlier. Inside its core market the flagship tier is a stated plan rather than a claimed position -- a 2nm SoC launching in the third quarter and, 'together with ongoing engagements with global players, we will increase our presence continuously in the flagship smartphone market in 2027' -- while Counterpoint records MediaTek's premium-tier shipments declining on a 'slowdown in sales of Dimensity 9000 series powered devices.' | fast follower LoRa, the technology Semtech owns, leads outside China; elsewhere Semtech is contesting the front rank. IoT Analytics’ March 21, 2024 release states “When excluding all LPWAN data from China, LoRa has the leading share of global LPWAN connections at 41%—more than double NB-IoT’s share”, though “Globally, NB-IoT has the largest share of LPWAN connections at approximately 54%” and “LoRa’s share of LPWAN connections is decreasing”. In data-center optics, management said on the fiscal Q2 2027 call (TradingKey machine transcript, https://www.tradingkey.com/news/transcripts/262131465-tradingkey) that at “800 gig, we had the market share about 18%. So over the 2 years, we have grown the market share well over 50% for 800 gig”, a company figure; an independent September 2024 newsletter (Deep Fundamental) had instead named Marvell and MACOM “the dominant players” in drivers and TIAs and said Semtech “has struggled to keep pace since the transition to 200G”. A third-party lead measured at the technology level rather than as Semtech’s own share, a company-reported share that the only independent view contradicts, and no ranking for its other lines do not evidence co-leadership, so the band is fast follower. | at parity PSMC sits in a cluster of similar-sized foundries rather than leading any. TrendForce ranks it tenth in 1Q26 (foundry-only revenue of $386 million, a 0.8% share) and tenth in 2Q26 ($432 million). It is just behind Nexchip ($447 million), VIS ($451 million) and Tower ($460 million). Its own annual report puts it 'among the top ten wafer foundry companies worldwide, with a market share of approximately 1%'. |
| Pricing power | moderate The 2Q26 remarks describe price as cost pass-through rather than capture: 'As rising costs across the supply chain have become an industry-wide reality, we are taking pricing actions to ensure these increases are appropriately reflected in our product pricing', with the full-year aim, 'through our disciplined pricing strategy', to 'deliver our full year gross margin within the current quarter guidance range' -- holding a band, not widening it. The realised figures show that defence working: gross margin 46.2%, down 0.1 percentage points sequentially, with Q3 guided at 46% plus or minus 1.5 points. The 2.9-point year-over-year decline is not an erosion rate; the company states it 'was mainly due to a one-time benefit in the year-ago quarter.' Holding a mid-40s gross margin through a market the company expects to decline 'by about 15% in units this year' is genuine discipline, but passing rising costs through to defend a guided band is not the ability to price above it. | moderate The 10-K describes a market where prices fall: “In the past, we have reduced the average selling prices of our products in anticipation of future competitive pricing pressures”, and Semtech’s products “are typically differentiated in performance but are priced competitively”. Margins have nonetheless climbed with the data-center mix: the fiscal Q2 2027 release (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000088941/000008894126000028/smtc-07262026x8k991.htm) reports GAAP gross margin of 53.8% against 52.1% a year earlier and guides fiscal Q3 adjusted gross margin to 58.3% +/- 100 bps, or 63.9% excluding the business held for sale. The release does not separate price from mix. | weak PSMC is raising prices now, but on a memory shortage after a year of gross losses. The 2025 annual report shows a gross loss of NT$1,536,997 thousand. TrendForce (2026-04-22, citing Liberty Times) reports that PSMC 'sharply raised DRAM foundry pricing in March', raised NAND wafer start prices in April, and lifted 8-inch prices 'by an average of around 10% month over month since March'. President Martin Chu said logic price increases 'are likely to remain far more moderate than the sharp hikes seen in memory'. He tied the memory upswing to 'a structural supply deficit through the second half of 2026', which is a cyclical driver. |
| Summary | MediaTek is the largest supplier of smartphone application processors by units and has been for as long as Counterpoint's public quarterly table runs. Across all ten quarters it covers, Q1 2024 through Q2 2026, MediaTek is first every time and never below 31%, while the nearest rival never clears 30%; in Q2 2026 it holds 31% against Qualcomm's 23%, Apple's 19%, UNISOC's 13%, Samsung's 9% and HiSilicon's 5%. That is a real, independently counted position, and it is the only part of MediaTek's business for which such a count exists in the sources used here. The same table is the clearest evidence that the position is being defended rather than extended. MediaTek's share moves inside a 31% to 41% band across the ten quarters, and the top of that band has come down -- 41% in Q1 2024, 38% in Q1 2025, 33% in Q1 2026 -- while the 31% of Q2 2026 matches the lows already set in Q4 2024 and Q4 2025 rather than breaking them; measured like for like against the same quarter a year earlier the series runs 34%, 36%, 31%. Counterpoint records MediaTek's shipments falling more than 30% year-over-year in the quarter -- hit in the mainstream and entry tiers by the memory shortage, and in the premium tier by a slowdown in Dimensity 9000 series devices -- while Samsung's Exynos climbed to 9% on Galaxy S26 base variants and mid-tier A-series wins. MediaTek's own 2Q26 remarks show the gross line holding and the operating line not: gross margin of 46.2%, down 0.1 percentage points sequentially and guided at 46% plus or minus 1.5 for the third quarter, against operating income down 22.2% year-over-year on revenue up 1.2%, with operating expenses of NT$47.4 billion against NT$44.5 billion a year earlier. Unit leadership held while the return on it did not. What MediaTek re-uses is design IP. It manufactures nothing itself -- the remarks describe deep design-technology co-optimization with TSMC and close work with advanced-packaging partners -- and they locate the durable asset in a pre-validated library of memory, I/O and connectivity subsystems, 448G SerDes with a Co-Package Copper system solution, CPO development on TSMC's COUPE platform, and an end-to-end 3.5D platform. The spending behind that library is visible in the cost line: operating expenses of NT$47.4 billion in the quarter against NT$44.5 billion a year earlier, with the Q3 operating expense ratio guided at 31% plus or minus 2 points against a gross margin guided at 46% plus or minus 1.5 -- an operating cost base running near a third of revenue. That library is now pointed at two adjacencies. Smart Edge Platforms -- connectivity, computing, automotive and TV SoCs -- is now the larger business, at 53% of revenue in Q2 against mobile's 41%, and grew 26% year-over-year while mobile fell 20%. And the company says it has built its first AI accelerator ASIC for a major US cloud customer, with production scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026. One adjacency is a target and one is a contribution, and this profile treats them as exactly that. The data center share figure of 15% to 20% is a 2027 target against a served market MediaTek itself sizes at US$80 billion, raised from 10% to 15% only one quarter earlier, and production of the first ASIC was still scheduled for the fourth quarter at the date of the remarks. The RTX Spark AI PC work is corroborated by NVIDIA's own announcement, which credits MediaTek with collaborating on the custom CPU design and contributing to its power efficiency, performance and connectivity -- but the superchip, its Grace CPU, its NVLink-C2C interconnect and its software stack are NVIDIA's, and the systems ship from PC makers, so what MediaTek holds is a design contribution rather than a franchise with a share to count. The claimed share gains in connectivity, computing and automotive carry no number and no third-party count. The honest reading is a company with one durable, independently verified franchise it is holding rather than extending, funding a credible but still unproven move into higher-value silicon on the strength of its IP portfolio. | Semtech is an analog and mixed-signal chipmaker being reshaped around two franchises. The first is AI data-center connectivity in its Signal Integrity segment - FiberEdge TIAs and drivers for optical transceivers and CopperEdge redrivers for active copper cables - whose net sales the FY2026 10-K reports at $322,608 thousand in fiscal 2026 against $177,033 thousand in fiscal 2024; the March 2026 HieFo acquisition added foundries that make devices for data-center interconnects. The second is LoRa, the long-range, low-power radio that IoT Analytics ranks as the leading LPWAN technology outside China. Around them sit protection devices, sensing and power products, and the IoT Systems business inherited from Sierra Wireless, whose cellular-module unit Semtech has agreed to sell to Compal Electronics for US$62 million (ABI Research, September 9, 2026, https://www.abiresearch.com/market-research/insight/7788486-compal-electronics-takes-semtechs-mantle-t). Momentum is strong: the fiscal Q2 2027 release reports record net sales of $341.9 million, up 33% year over year, and management said data-center revenue hit a record $100 million in the quarter. But the 10-K is frank about limits - rapid ASP erosion, customers that can drop its parts with little notice, 47% of sales to China, competitors that are “much larger and better resourced than we are”, and patents that do not bar entry. Proprietary technology in two growing niches, rather than a locked-in customer base, makes the moat narrow. | PSMC is a Taiwanese foundry with two 8-inch and three 12-inch fabs in Hsinchu and Zhunan. It has three businesses: memory foundry (niche DRAM, SLC NAND and NOR flash), specialty logic (PMICs, power discretes, high-voltage display drivers, CMOS image sensors) and a newer '3D AI foundry' (wafer-on-wafer stacking, interposers, silicon capacitors and HBM post-wafer finishing). In Q2 2026, memory was 52% of revenue, logic 42.6% and 3D AI 5.4%, per its September 2026 presentation. 2025 was a loss year. Revenue rose 4% to NT$46.7 billion, but the company lost NT$7.8 billion as the new Tongluo fab failed to reach scale. 2026 has turned on prices. Q2 2026 revenue was NT$17,291 million, up 53% YoY, with foundry utilization of 87% against 75% a year earlier. TrendForce ranks PSMC tenth in 2Q26 with $432 million, noting that 'overall shipments increased only modestly' and that price increases drove the growth. The strategy is changing. PSMC sold the Tongluo site to Micron, and will provide HBM post-wafer finishing for Micron, with mass production expected in Q4 2027 (TrendForce, 2026-04-22). Its silicon capacitors are expected in Intel's EMIB packaging, according to PSMC. The verdict is no moat. PSMC is a mature-node foundry whose 2026 profits reflect a memory-price cycle after a loss-making 2025, and Chinese foundries compete with it on price. |
| Chain position | A fabless designer sitting between its customers and the TSMC-centred manufacturing chain. The 2Q26 remarks describe 'deep design-technology co-optimization (DTCO) with TSMC' and close work with advanced-packaging partners to build 'high-performance ASICs across a broad range of very-large chip sizes using CoWoS and EMIB-T technologies' at nodes down to 2nm, and say MediaTek creates 'significant value beyond semiconductor by orchestrating other key components throughout the supply chain such as memory and substrate' -- a coordinator role as much as a design one. | Semtech sells mostly through independent distributors (74% of fiscal 2026 net sales) to OEMs. In AI data centers its FiberEdge and CopperEdge parts go into the optical transceivers and active copper cables that module and cable makers build, and the 10-K says hyperscale cloud providers “are generally our indirect customers”. Two customers took 14% and 11% of fiscal 2026 net sales, and customers in China (including Hong Kong) 47%. | Upstream foundry for fabless memory and specialty-logic designers. Fabless customers were 90% of Q2 2026 sales. It also provides silicon capacitors, interposers and HBM post-wafer finishing to AI packaging supply chains. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.06 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.06 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |