Thursday, August 11, 2011

What does Warren Buffett mean by "economics of the business 10 years from now"?

I think it would be best to use an illustration. Let's say Warren was looking at the mobile advertising business. Today the business is in its very early stages. Not too many people are using it; but those that are are getting very good performance from it. So the economics of the business are low volume, high growth rate, high margins. Now ten years from now, what will the economics be? I might speculate that volume will be much higher, growth rate lower, response to advertising, much lower (it will be old hat by then) and there will be lots of companies in the space. Therefore margins will be lower. Those are the economics that he might project for ten years from now in deciding whether it was a business he wanted to own.

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