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.
| Semtech | Jabil | Salesforce | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | 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 Jabil's FY2025 10-K (fiscal year ended August 31, 2025) says it plainly: "Our business is highly competitive, and our manufacturing processes are generally not subject to significant proprietary protection." It adds that "The significant purchasing power and market power of these competitors, many of which are large companies, has and could increase pricing and competitive pressures for us", that some "have substantially greater manufacturing, research and development (R&D) and marketing resources", and that customers "are continually evaluating the merits of manufacturing products internally against the advantages of outsourcing". Stored fundamentals from the 10-Ks show gross profit of $2,867 million on $34,702 million of revenue in fiscal 2023, $2,676 million on $28,883 million in fiscal 2024 and $2,646 million on $29,802 million in fiscal 2025. AI demand has since accelerated growth (fiscal 2026 net revenue of $36.0 billion, per the 2026-09-30 release), but growth is not protection, and the filing's own description is of an unprotected, competitive service. No moat is claimable. | narrow Salesforce's own language caps this at narrow: Item 1 calls its market "highly competitive, rapidly evolving and fragmented, and subject to changing technology with low barriers to entry." What holds it above none is scale and contract duration: $72.4B total RPO at 2026-01-31 versus $63.4B (+14%), current RPO $35.1B versus $30.2B (+16%), on revenue of $41.5B (+10%). But cRPO growth "was positively impacted by three percent" by currency, and total RPO "includes approximately $2.2 billion" from Informatica, acquired November 2025. Adjusted, the contracted base still outgrows revenue, but by less than the headline implies. |
| Moat type | 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 10-K says "We currently have a relatively modest number of patents for various innovations" and that Jabil relies "largely upon a combination of intellectual property laws, non-disclosure agreements with our customers, employees, and suppliers and our internal security systems, policies, and procedures", with other proprietary-rights factors being "the knowledge and experience of our management and workforce". Its stated advantages are operating methods (customer-dedicated business units, "highly automated, continuous flow manufacturing", global production and centralized procurement), not lock-in: "In the past, some of our customers moved a portion of their manufacturing from us in order to more fully utilize their excess internal manufacturing capacity." On the Q4 FY2026 call (https://earningswhispers.com/transcript/JBL/Q42026) management described a build-to-customer-design model rather than proprietary platforms: "We help customers build the system they've designed with their silicon, their architecture, and whichever suppliers they choose." | switching costs Switching costs, with a caveat: the filing's clearest lock-in sentence is about rivals' customers, not its own. "Many prospective customers have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to implement and integrate their current enterprise software... may be reluctant or unwilling to migrate away" is a headwind to Salesforce's own growth. Evidence for its own base is architectural: Data 360 unifies data into "a single, governed source of truth," Agentforce runs on existing processes "without requiring customers to remove and rebuild," behind $72.4B of contracted revenue. Contracts run "typically 12 to 36 months" with no renewal obligation. |
| Leadership | 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 The 10-K calls Jabil "one of the leading providers of engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions" and claims no rank. Independently, EMSNOW/in4ma's "EMS&ODM Global 100" (2026-03-06, https://www.emsnow.com/?p=53535) groups Jabil with Flex, Celestica and Sanmina as the US "big four", "representing about 85% of the revenue base among ~20 US headquartered EMS/ODM", while Wistron, Quanta and Wiwynn "plus Foxconn together account for nearly 57% of global EMS/ODM production". The 10-K concedes some competitors have "substantially greater manufacturing, research and development (R&D) and marketing resources". Among the largest Western contract manufacturers but behind the Taiwanese leaders in scale: at parity, not a leader. | clear leader Clear leader in the category as it exists today, runner-up in the one it is being rebuilt into. Per IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker on 2025 data, Salesforce was first in worldwide CRM applications for a thirteenth consecutive year at 20.0% share, and first in Sales (fourteenth year), Customer Service (thirteenth), Marketing (seventh), model-driven application platform (eleventh) and Integration (fourth). These come from Salesforce announcing its own IDC results via a trade outlet, in translation, not IDC primary material. In the same tracker's new Agent Build and Deploy segment it ranked second at 17.5%, albeit as fastest-growing vendor. |
| Pricing power | 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 Stored fundamentals show gross profit of $2,867 million on $34,702 million of revenue in fiscal 2023, $2,676 million on $28,883 million in fiscal 2024 and $2,646 million on $29,802 million in fiscal 2025. The 10-K says "Most of our significant long-term customer contracts permit quarterly or other periodic prospective adjustments to pricing based on decreases and increases in component prices and other factors", so component costs largely pass through, while competitors may "be better positioned to compete on price for their services". Management's fiscal 2027 outlook is a core operating margin (non-GAAP) of 6.1% (release, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/898293/000162828026063890/jbl-20260930ex991.htm). | moderate Gross margin rises across the Item 7 table — gross profit of $32,255M on $41,525M of revenue, 78% of total revenues in FY2026 against 77% in FY2025 and 75% in FY2024 — yet MD&A denies price as the cause: growth "was primarily caused by volume-driven increases from new business," and "Pricing was not a significant driver of the increase in revenues for the period." Item 1A names consumption-based pricing among attrition factors, says Agentforce and Data 360 monetization "remain relatively new and uncertain," and concedes "limited experience with determining optimal pricing for our consumption-based contracts." |
| Summary | 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. | Jabil provides engineering, manufacturing and supply chain services through three segments. Per its FY2025 10-K, Intelligent Infrastructure serves "capital equipment, cloud and data center infrastructure, and networking and communications" customers; Regulated Industries serves automotive and transportation, healthcare and packaging, and renewables and energy infrastructure; and Connected Living and Digital Commerce is focused on "digitalization and automation, including warehouse automation and robotics". AI demand now drives growth: the fiscal 2026 release (2026-09-30) reports net revenue of $36.0 billion, with the CEO saying Jabil "grew revenue 21%, expanded core operating margin 40 basis points", and on the Q4 FY2026 call management said "AI-related revenue was up 60% year-over-year", that Jabil "ended the year with four customers with AI related revenue above a billion dollars annually", and that it expects cloud and data center infrastructure revenue of "approximately $17.5 billion" in fiscal 2027. The 10-K shows the limits: the five largest customers were approximately 36% of fiscal 2025 revenue and one customer, reported primarily in Intelligent Infrastructure, 16%; manufacturing processes are "generally not subject to significant proprietary protection"; and competitors may "be willing or able to make sales or provide services at lower margins than we do". An independent tally (EMSNOW/in4ma, 2026-03-06) counts Jabil among the US "big four" EMS providers while putting Foxconn, Wistron, Quanta and Wiwynn at "nearly 57% of global EMS/ODM production". A large, fast-growing contractor without a protected position. | Salesforce is the incumbent of record in CRM applications and is paid like one: $41.5B of FY2026 revenue (+10%), 78% gross margin, $72.4B of contracted revenue not yet recognized, and first place in worldwide CRM for a thirteenth consecutive year at 20.0% share per IDC's tracker as announced by Salesforce. Enterprise data and workflow embedded through Data 360 and Agentforce is costly to unwind, and the agentic layer is deliberately built atop existing processes rather than requiring re-implementation. The limits are the company's own: it twice describes its market as having low barriers to entry, names AI-native startups whose solutions "may bypass traditional business process workflows or displace established user interfaces," ranks second at 17.5% in IDC's new Agent Build and Deploy segment, and concedes pricing did not drive FY2026 growth. |
| Chain position | 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%. | Contract manufacturer for cloud, networking, semiconductor-equipment, automotive, healthcare and consumer customers. On the Q4 FY2026 call management said "Others in the industry are building product companies around their own power and cooling platforms and asking customers to standardize on them. That's a legitimate model. Ours is different." | Applications-layer incumbent: sells enterprise CRM and agentic software to end customers across industries, consumes cloud infrastructure (third-party IaaS partners plus its own Hyperforce estate) and third-party LLMs, and sits upstream of no hardware supply chain. Exposure is to enterprise software budgets and to whether the agentic layer is captured by incumbent suites or AI-native entrants. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.06 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.06 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |