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 | Tencent Holdings | GE Vernova | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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. | wide The 2025 Annual Report reports combined MAU of Weixin and WeChat of 1,418 million at 31 December 2025, still growing 2% year-on-year and 0.3% quarter-on-quarter off a 1.4-billion-account base, while group gross margin rose to 56% from 53% and Marketing Services revenue grew 19% to RMB145.0 billion 'primarily driven by growth in pricing and ad impressions'. Rising price on a still-growing user base of that size is the signature of a wide moat, not a contested one. | wide FY2025 10-K (filed 2026-01-29): the installed base generates approximately 25% of the world's electricity; the Power segment carries ~$94.4B of remaining performance obligations with ~1,800 of ~7,000 installed gas turbines under long-term service agreements averaging ~10 years of remaining contract life; and the filing states demand is 'exceeding available capacity' for its products — a contracted, decade-scale service annuity on proprietary installed equipment. |
| 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. | network effects The report attributes Marketing Services pricing growth to 'an increasing proportion of closed-loop ads (where the user clicks through to native transactional experiences, such as Mini Programs, Mini Shops, or Mini Games)' and describes growing engagement with Mini Shops, Mini Games and content Mini Programs 'by strengthening Weixin's commerce experience and content ecosystem' - merchants and developers building inside the user graph rather than beside it, which is a network effect rather than a switching cost or a scale cost advantage. | switching costs 10-K: ~1,800 gas turbines under long-term service agreements with ~10-year average remaining life, plus services agreements on ~24,000 of ~59,000 installed onshore wind turbines — service revenue is contractually tied to GE Vernova's own installed fleet; the filing adds it derives 'a sustained competitive advantage both from our IP portfolio as well as technical know-how embedded in our products and manufacturing techniques developed over decades'. |
| 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.' | clear leader The only explicit leadership claims in the report are the Company's own: Tencent Video 'maintained its leading position in China's long-form video market' and Tencent Music 'extended its leading position in China's music streaming market'. Against a 1,418 million combined Weixin/WeChat MAU base, the report asserts leadership in the adjacent content markets and no competitor is named anywhere in it. | co leader 10-K opens with 'GE Vernova is a global leader in the electric power industry' and its installed base generates ~25% of world electricity, but the filing names peer-scale competitors in every segment — Siemens Energy in both Power and Electrification, Mitsubishi Power, Vestas, Hitachi Energy, Schneider Electric, ABB — so co-leader across the portfolio rather than clear leader. |
| 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. | strong Group gross margin was 56% for 2025, up from 53%, with segment gross margins of 60% for VAS (from 57%), 58% for Marketing Services (from 55%) and 51% for FinTech and Business Services (from 47%); Marketing Services revenue growth is attributed 'primarily' to pricing, and the Chairman's Statement notes ad load 'remained at a much lower level than peers'' - price is rising with monetisation headroom still unused. | strong 10-K: 'increasing demand exceeding available capacity', Electrification customer lead-times 'increased as a result of demand outstripping supply', and both Power and Electrification state they adjust pricing 'in line with market demand, inflation, and industry dynamics'; trade press (Power Engineering, 2026-04-23) reported new gas-turbine order pricing in H1 2026 tracking 10-20 points higher on a dollar-per-kilowatt basis than Q4 2025 orders. |
| 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. | The textbook answer holds, but not for the textbook reason. Weixin's value is that third parties transact inside it: the report ties Marketing Services growth to closed-loop ads landing in Mini Programs, Mini Shops and Mini Games, ties Business Services growth to 'higher eCommerce technology service fees, underpinned by growth in Mini Shops GMV', and reports that ad load 'remained at a much lower level than peers', so the graph is being monetised deliberately below capacity. On gaming regulation the record is thinner than the received narrative implies: a Hong Kong annual report carries no Risk Factors and no Competition section, and the only place game licensing appears is the Structure Contracts disclosure, where Circular 13 (2009) is discussed as a foreign-ownership question - PRC legal advisers say the arrangement does not violate existing law, while warning of 'substantial uncertainties regarding the interpretation and application' of it. So the disclosed regulatory exposure is structural (VIE legality) rather than an operating constraint on game approvals; the filing simply does not speak to approval throughput at all, and any moat claim resting on it would be unsourced. | GE Vernova's moat rests on its installed base: the FY2025 10-K states its equipment generates approximately 25% of the world's electricity, with ~7,000 installed gas turbines (~1,800 under long-term service agreements averaging ~10 years of remaining life) and ~$94.4B of Power-segment remaining performance obligations. The filing reports demand 'exceeding available capacity', lengthening Electrification lead-times 'as a result of demand outstripping supply', and pricing adjusted with demand — scarcity trade press later quantified as new gas-turbine order pricing tracking 10-20 points higher per kW in H1 2026 than Q4 2025, with only ~10 GW of production slots left across 2029-2030 (Power Engineering, 2026-04-23). The moat is not uniform: the 10-K risk section flags intensifying competition as manufacturers from China 'improve quality and reliability and pursue markets outside their home countries', and Offshore Wind is delivering its backlog under project-cost and execution pressure, compounded by the U.S. Interior Department's December 22, 2025 pause of leases for all large-scale U.S. offshore projects under construction, which directly impacted the Vineyard Wind timeline. Nuclear adds optionality: the 10-K cites an SMR deployment agreement it calls 'the first commercial contract of its kind in North America' via its joint ventures with Hitachi. |
| 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. | Both a downstream AI deployer and an upstream supplier: the report says Tencent Cloud 'achieved profit at scale due to increased enterprise demand for AI workloads' while AI is also credited with improving its own ad targeting and game content production. | Power supplier to the AI buildout: the 10-K states gas power serves 'rising electricity demand from hyperscalers and data centers' and Electrification benefits from orders to electrify data centers 'playing a key role in the development of artificial intelligence (AI)'; trade press (Power Engineering, 2026-04-23) put roughly 20% of the ~100 GW of gas capacity under contract as explicitly tied to data-center load. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.42 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.35 at weight 0.20 · swarm bullish Editorial prior, not backtested. |