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 | Tokyo Electron | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 Integrated Report 2026 (issued 2026-09-15) documents strong positions across the line: by Tokyo Electron's own estimate it ranks No. 1 in diffusion furnaces, batch deposition, metal deposition, coater/developers, gas chemical etch and wafer probers, No. 2 in plasma etch and bonders and No. 3 in cleaning, and holds a "100% share" of coater/developers for EUV lithography; its installed base, industry-leading by its own estimate, is approximately 100,000 units, growing by approximately 4,000-6,000 units a year; and its 26,592 patents rank No. 1 in the semiconductor production equipment industry on the LexisNexis PatentSight+ database. Reported returns stayed high through a sales decline: gross profit margin stayed between 44.6% and 47.1% and ROE between 21.8% and 37.2% across fiscal 2022-2026, including fiscal 2024 when net sales fell to ¥1,830.5 billion. The share ranks, the EUV share and the installed-base lead are company estimates, not third-party data. |
| 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 report calls its patent portfolio its "fifth strength" and says that "by supporting our other four strengths, it serves a vital role as the foundation" for medium- to long-term corporate value: 26,592 patents as of March 31, 2026, 1,415 inventions created in Japan and 345 overseas in 2025, and Clarivate Top 100 Global Innovators recognition for the fifth consecutive year. The other strengths rest on the same proprietary process know-how — co-created technology roadmaps that evaluate technologies "for the next four generations and beyond" with customers, "numerous development PORs" (process of record) in the frontend business, and the EUV coater/developer position — so proprietary process technology, reinforced by qualification in customers' process flows, is the moat source. |
| 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.' | co leader The CEO's message describes Tokyo Electron as "one of the world's leading suppliers of semiconductor production equipment" and states a "goal of becoming number one globally" — it does not claim to be the largest supplier overall — while by its own estimate it ranks No. 1 in six charted segments (diffusion furnace, batch deposition, metal deposition, coater/developer, gas chemical etch, wafer prober), No. 2 in plasma etch and bonders, and No. 3 in cleaning. |
| 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 Gross profit margin held in a 44.6%-47.1% range over fiscal 2022-2026, including fiscal 2024's sales decline, but in fiscal 2026 it fell 1.8 points to 45.3% "due to factors such as higher raw material prices and increased labor costs" even as net sales reached a record, and the CEO lists "revising prices appropriately with respect to cost increases caused by inflation" among five initiatives needed to improve the operating margin. |
| 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. | Tokyo Electron makes wafer fab equipment for what its Integrated Report 2026 calls the "four key processes necessary for semiconductor scaling: deposition, coater/developer, etch, and cleaning", plus wafer probers and bonders for test and advanced packaging. The report grounds its edge in breadth and incumbency: leading share estimates in most of its segments, an estimated 100% share of EUV coater/developers, an installed base of approximately 100,000 units, industry-leading by its own estimate, feeding a Field Solutions business that sold ¥626.0 billion of parts, services, used equipment and modifications in fiscal 2026, and the industry's largest patent portfolio. Fiscal 2026 net sales were a record ¥2,443,533 million, but gross profit margin fell 1.8 points to 45.3% on higher raw material prices and labor costs, and operating margin fell 3.1 points to 25.6% as R&D expenses rose 11.1% to ¥277,866 million. China accounted for 34.1% of fiscal 2026 net sales, down from 41.7% the year before. |
| 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. | Upstream equipment supplier to chipmakers: fiscal 2026 new-equipment sales of ¥1,775.4 billion went 59% to non-memory (logic, foundry, others), 31% to DRAM and 10% to NAND; by region, China took 34.1%, South Korea 22.3% and Taiwan 20.4% of net sales. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm bearish Editorial prior, not backtested. |