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.
| Teradyne | ServiceNow | CXMT | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow Real but bounded: the FY2025 10-K reports gross profit at 58.2% of total revenues, a level it records as a decrease - 'Gross profit as a percent of total revenues decreased by 0.3 points, primarily due to product mix' from 58.5% in 2024 - while a shared IG-XL test-program environment spans the FLEX and J750 families. Against that, the filing's own risk-factor heading is 'We are subject to intense competition' and it concedes that 'Some of our competitors have introduced or announced new products with certain performance characteristics that may be considered equal or superior to those we currently offer,' adding that it faces competition 'from emerging Asian companies and internal development at several of our customers.' | narrow The FY2025 10-K shows RPO of $28.2 billion, up 27%; customers above $5 million of ACV at 603, 502 and 420 as of December 31 2025, 2024 and 2023; revenue of $13,278 million, up 21%; and a 98% renewal rate for three years. That rate cannot prove durability: the filing computes it excluding "changes in price or users," says it "does not reflect increased or decreased purchases," and warns "period-to-period comparison of renewal rates may not be meaningful." The company also calls its market "characterized by fragmentation, low barriers to entry." Real switching costs plus compounding large accounts support narrow; wide would need durability proof this filing lacks. | none CXMT's 2026 interim report (published 2026-08-29) names scale and IDM technology as core competencies, but also concedes gaps. It says that compared with the leading international manufacturers the Company 'still has a certain gap in overall scale, technology accumulation and customer resources' (与国际头部厂商相比，公司在整体规模、技术积累、客户资源等方面仍然存在一定差距). It describes its scale effect as 'gradually emerging' (逐步显现), and its gross-margin risk covers the case where the scale effect cannot materialise over the long term (公司规模效应长期无法显现). Its excess returns span a single shortage. The retained-earnings note shows an accumulated deficit of ¥36.65bn entering 2026, after ¥1.87bn of 2025 net profit attributable to the parent, and the first-half 2025 net loss attributable to shareholders was ¥2.33bn. Then first-half 2026 revenue rose 873.64%, which the report attributes to the global DRAM supply shortage, higher prices and sharply higher volumes, and the main-business gross margin reached 84.84%. |
| Moat type | switching costs The 10-K's Products section grounds the stickiness in test-program and capital reuse rather than in protected IP: the FLEX Test Platform runs 'The IG-XL™ software operating system which provides fast program development, including instant conversion from single to multi-site test', the J750 'shares the IG-XL software environment with the family of FLEX Test Platform systems,' and its instruments are 'coupled with a universal slot test head design that allows easy test system reconfiguration to address changing test needs.' The filing credits that versatility with making FLEX 'a widely used test solution at OSATs... allowing OSATs to leverage their capital investments.' The same 10-K expressly disclaims an IP-based moat: 'We do not believe that any single piece of intellectual property or proprietary rights is essential to our business.' | switching costs The binding force is architecture and configuration. The filing describes "a multi-instance architecture that provides each customer with a dedicated application layer and database," an ITOM product that "maintains a single record of all IT configurable items," and products built to "integrate with existing workflows rather than replace them." Once that record and its integrations are configured, replacement becomes a re-platforming program — our inference, as the filing quantifies no switching cost. Not IP: it holds "over 2,000 issued U.S. and foreign patents" but is not "materially dependent on any single patent." Not network effects. | none On the report's own evidence, no candidate moat source qualifies. Cost scale: the report calls DRAM a highly standardised product (高度标准化的产品) in which the cost advantage of scale is a core competency. But CXMT ranks fourth globally by capacity, and the report, calculating on sales, puts Samsung, SK hynix and Micron at 33.96%, 34.48% and 23.41% of the 2025 global DRAM market, so the scale advantage lies with the leaders. IP: it reports 4,484 domestic patents (3,744 of them invention patents) and 3,400 overseas patents as of 2026-06-30. Yet it describes its core technology as reaching 'international advanced level' (国际先进水平) and flags possible IP disputes with competitors. Switching costs: ¥133.48bn of ¥150.31bn first-half 2026 revenue went through distributors, who under the report's revenue note decide their own resale prices. |
| Leadership | co leader The 10-K opens by calling Teradyne 'a leading global provider of automated test equipment and robotics solutions' - a leading provider, not the leader - and its Competition section names Semiconductor Test rivals non-exhaustively: competitors 'include, among others, Advantest Corporation, SPEA S.p.A., and Cohu, Inc.' It discloses no share figure and warns that competitors' announced products 'may be considered equal or superior to those we currently offer,' which reads as shared leadership rather than a clear lead. | clear leader The call is scoped to IT service management. Apps Run The World's 2024 ITSM ranking (page dated 23 July 2025) places ServiceNow first at 44.4% share, ahead of Atlassian, BMC, GoTo and Ivanti, in an $11.4 billion market where the top ten hold 83.3%. Scale corroborates: about 8,700 customers, 29,187 employees, $13,278 million of revenue, $28.2 billion of RPO. References to "two decades partnering with enterprise customers" and process knowledge "that cannot be readily replicated" are the filing's own characterisation. Outside ITSM it is weaker: one of six Leaders in the 2025 Gartner LCAP quadrant, and tenth of ten in CRM behind Salesforce at 26.1%. | fast follower TrendForce (2026-09-24) reports that CXMT's global DRAM revenue share rose to 9.5% in 2Q26 from 7.6% in 1Q26, 'placing it fourth behind Samsung at 39.4%, SK hynix at 24.9%, and Micron at 23.3%'. It is catching up through generation-skipping R&D. The interim report had its fifth process platform in customer certification, and a voluntary disclosure on 2026-09-21 announced that platform's mass production, adding that its products are not yet in scale sales and yields need time to ramp. TrendForce's listing analysis (2026-07-28) still says CXMT 'still trails Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron in advanced processes, product performance, yields, and certification by high-end customers'. |
| Pricing power | moderate Gross profit was 58.2% of total revenues in 2025 against 58.5% in 2024, and the 10-K attributes the 0.3-point decline to product mix; product gross margin fell 0.8 points to 57.3%. The risk factor 'Our operating results are likely to fluctuate significantly' lists 'competitive pressures on selling prices' among factors that 'could impact future operations,' and the same list cites the tendency of customers to 'wait until late in a quarter to commit to purchase... or the hope of obtaining more favorable pricing from a competitor seeking the business' - margin is defended, not expanded. | moderate The filing discloses no average selling price, no net revenue retention and no pricing data, and the renewal rate is no proxy — it "does not reflect increased or decreased purchases" and excludes "changes in price or users." Revenue up 21%, the $5 million-plus cohort up about 20% annually and RPO up 27% are all consistent with expansion at flat pricing. Margins cut the other way: subscription gross profit fell to 80% from 82% with no stated cause, and professional services gross loss widened to 5% from 2%. One real lever is that "certain AI and data solutions include a consumption-based pricing component." | weak CXMT is a price taker riding the cycle. The interim report attributes first-half revenue growth to the global DRAM supply shortage, rising prices and sharply higher volumes. It records industry prices between 2015 and 2025 as high as $7.89/GB and as low as $1.78/GB in first-half 2023, and it states that the continued steep price rise is not sustainable. Main-business revenue was ¥15.22bn against cost of ¥13.29bn in first-half 2025, and ¥150.04bn against ¥22.75bn in first-half 2026. Most sales go through distributors, who set their own resale prices. |
| Summary | Teradyne sells the test step that sits between fabrication and shipment, and its hold on customers comes from platform continuity rather than patents. The FY2025 10-K describes one IG-XL software environment shared across the FLEX and J750 test families and a universal slot test head that lets a customer reconfigure a system to address changing test needs, which the filing credits with making FLEX widely used at OSATs because it lets them leverage their capital investments. The margin that continuity sits on is high but not rising: gross profit was 58.2% of revenue in 2025, which the filing records as a 0.3-point decrease from 2024 on product mix, with product margin down 0.8 points to 57.3% and service margin up 2.9 points to 62.9% - and the filing attributes that service gain to the May 2024 sale of the DIS business, not to the platform. It is a narrow moat, not a wide one: the filing names Advantest, SPEA and Cohu 'among others' in Semiconductor Test, warns of internal development at several customers, states that rival products may be 'equal or superior,' and discloses that the five largest direct customers rose to 44% of consolidated revenue in 2025 from 36% in 2024 - buyer power that caps how much of the platform advantage converts to price. | ServiceNow sells a workflow platform that sits on top of, rather than replaces, an enterprise's existing systems. Each customer gets a dedicated application layer and database, ITOM maintains a single record of all IT configurable items, and products integrate with existing workflows rather than replace them; once that record and its integrations span IT, HR and customer service, displacement becomes a re-platforming exercise. The evidence is in large commitments: $5 million-plus ACV customers rose from 420 to 502 to 603, and RPO reached $28.2 billion, up 27%, against $13,278 million of FY2025 revenue. The moat is bounded by a market the company itself calls fragmented with low barriers to entry, by larger rivals that can bundle or cut price, and by falling subscription gross margin, 82% to 80%. | CXMT (ChangXin) is a Hefei-based IDM that designs and fabricates DDR5 and LPDDR4X/LPDDR5/5X/LPDDR6 memory and sells DRAM wafers, chips and modules. Its 2026 interim report says it reached its fourth process platform through a 'generation-skipping' (跳代研发) R&D strategy, and that it ranks first in China and fourth globally by shipments and sales. First-half 2026 revenue was ¥150.31bn (DDR series ¥69.47bn, LPDDR series ¥78.19bn), with a main-business gross margin of 84.84%. TrendForce puts its 2Q26 DRAM revenue share at 9.5%, up from 7.6% in 1Q26. The position is real but recent. The report concedes gaps to the three leaders in scale, technology and customers. The customers it names are Alibaba Cloud, ByteDance, Tencent, Lenovo, Xiaomi, Transsion, Honor, OPPO and vivo. On 2026-06-08 the US Defense Department added its subsidiary ChangXin Memory to the Section 1260H list. TrendForce notes that export controls leave CXMT relying on DUV multiple patterning rather than EUV, and that its prospectus 'has not disclosed a clear mass-production timetable' for HBM. The report itself warns that the continued steep rise in DRAM prices is not sustainable (价格的持续大幅上涨不具备可持续性) as international makers add capacity. |
| Chain position | Back-end capital equipment: its testers sit between fabrication and shipment, and the 10-K states that AI related customer demand drove the majority of revenue in the second half of 2025, with Semiconductor Test at 79% of consolidated revenue. | Enterprise workflow platform layered on top of customers' existing systems of record. It consumes public cloud capacity (named relationships with AWS, Google, Microsoft and NVIDIA) plus its own data centers, and reaches customers through a direct sales force, global system integrators (Accenture, Deloitte, EY, Infosys, KPMG) and resale partners. Microsoft is named as both partner and competitor. | Upstream DRAM IDM selling wafers, chips and modules to server, smartphone, PC and automotive makers, mostly through distributors (¥133.48bn of ¥150.31bn first-half 2026 revenue). |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm bullish Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.06 at weight 0.20 · swarm bullish Editorial prior, not backtested. |