Akamai Technologies, Inc. (AKAM)

Comment l'entreprise gagne de l'argent

Akamai sells its network capacity mostly through subscription and usage-based contracts with large enterprises — media companies, banks, retailers — who pay to protect and speed up their websites and applications. Security is now the largest and fastest-growing piece of revenue, Compute (cloud infrastructure) the smallest but growing quickly, while the original Delivery business is shrinking as customers build multi-cloud setups or handle traffic themselves, a mix shift that is gradually changing what kind of company Akamai is.

Chiffre d'affaires par segment

Once a large enterprise has wired Akamai's network into how its website or app handles traffic and security, ripping it out and replacing it with a competitor's is disruptive engineering work, which keeps existing customers in place. But that stickiness has not stopped Akamai's original Delivery business from shrinking as buyers adopt cheaper multi-cloud alternatives, so the moat protects revenue more than it grows it.

Demand tracks enterprise spending on IT, security and internet infrastructure, which is more resilient than consumer spending but not immune to budget tightening in a downturn. Security spending in particular tends to hold up well even when other IT budgets are cut, since companies treat protection against attacks as close to mandatory.

Principaux risques

• Competition from hyperscale cloud providers — AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and dedicated CDN or security rivals like Cloudflare all compete for the same enterprise budgets, and some customers choose to build the capability themselves.
• Structural decline of the Delivery business — The original CDN business has shrunk for several consecutive years as customers shift to multi-cloud strategies or in-house solutions, and there is no guarantee the decline levels off.
• Cybersecurity threats to its own network — As a security vendor, Akamai is itself a target for sophisticated attacks, especially during periods of heightened geopolitical tension; a breach would damage the trust its security business depends on.
• Need for continuous innovation — Security and cloud computing evolve quickly; failing to keep pace with new threats and technologies, or losing engineering talent to competitors, could erode Akamai's relevance in its two growth segments.