People Valuation Multiples

Alphabet is a holding company that wholly owns internet giant Google. The California-based company derives slightly less than 90% of its revenue from Google services, the vast majority of which is advertising sales. Alongside online ads, Google services houses sales stemming from Google’s subscription services (YouTube TV and YouTube Music, among others), platforms (sales and in-app purchases on Play Store), and devices (Chromebooks, Pixel smartphones, and smart home products such as Chromecast). Google’s cloud computing platform accounts for roughly 10% of Alphabet’s revenue. The firm’s investments in up-and-coming technologies such as self-driving cars (Waymo), health (Verily), and internet access (Google Fiber) make up the rest.

Amazon is the leading online retailer and marketplace for third party sellers. Retail related revenue represents approximately 74% of total, followed by Amazon Web Services (17%), and advertising services (9%). International segments constitute 22% of Amazon's total revenue, led by Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

Netflix’s relatively simple business model involves only one business, its streaming service. It has the biggest television entertainment subscriber base in both the United States and the collective international market, with more than 300 million subscribers globally. Netflix has exposure to nearly the entire global population outside of China. The firm has traditionally avoided a regular slate of live programming or sports content, instead focusing on on-demand access to episodic television, movies, and documentaries. The firm introduced ad-supported subscription plans in 2022, giving the firm exposure to the advertising market in addition to the subscription fees that have historically accounted for nearly all its revenue.

Alibaba is the world's largest online and mobile commerce company as measured by gross merchandise volume. It operates China's online marketplaces, including Taobao (consumer-to-consumer) and Tmall (business-to-consumer). The China retail e-commerce platform is the most valuable cash flow-generating business at Alibaba. Additional revenue sources include China wholesale e-commerce, international retail and wholesale e-commerce, local consumer services, travel services, cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, Cainiao logistics services, and other businesses.

Wireless services account for 75% of Verizon Communications' total service revenue and nearly all of its operating income. The firm serves about 94 million postpaid and 20 million prepaid phone customers via its nationwide network, making it the largest US wireless carrier. Fixed-line telecom operations include local networks in the Northeast that reach about 30 million homes and businesses, including about 20 million served by the Fios fiber-optic network. Verizon closed its acquisition of Frontier Communications in January, adding networks that reach another 15 million locations, including 9 million with fiber. These networks serve about 11 million broadband customers. Verizon also provides telecom services nationwide to enterprise customers, using a mix of its own and other networks.

Disney operates in three global business segments: entertainment, sports, and experiences. Entertainment and experiences both benefit from the firm’s ownership of iconic franchises and characters. Entertainment includes the ABC broadcast network, several cable television networks, and the Disney+ and Hulu streaming services. Within the segment, Disney also engages in movie and television production and distribution, with content licensed to movie theaters, other content providers, or, increasingly, kept in-house for use on Disney’s own streaming platform and television networks. The sports segment houses the ESPN family of TV networks and streaming services. Experiences contains Disney’s theme parks, cruises, and vacation destinations and also engages in merchandise licensing.

Recruit is a holding company for various technology and employment-related businesses. Recruit’s primary business is its HR technology segment, in which it owns two out of three globally scaled employment-related platforms: www.indeed.com, an online marketplace for employment; and www.glassdoor.com, an online review site for employers. Recruit also owns various marketing businesses operating in Japan for life events and lifestyle, a software solutions business for small and medium-size enterprises, or SMEs, in Japan, and various staffing businesses operating throughout the developed world.

Uber Technologies is a technology provider that matches riders with drivers, hungry people with restaurants and food couriers, and shippers with carriers. The firm's on-demand technology platform is currently utilized by traditional cars as well as autonomous vehicles, but could eventually be used for additional products and services, such as delivery via drones or electronic vehicle take-off and landing (eVTOL) technology. Uber operates in over 70 countries, with over 202 million users who order rides or food at least once a month.

Booking is the world's largest online travel agency by sales, offering booking and payment services for hotel and alternative accommodation rooms, airlines, rental cars, restaurants, cruises, experiences, and other vacation packages. The company operates several branded travel booking sites, including Booking.com, Agoda, OpenTable, Rentalcars.com, Kayak, and Momondo. Transaction fees for online bookings account for the bulk of revenue and profits.

Spotify is the leading global music streaming service, with over 750 million monthly active users and nearly 300 million paying subscribers, with the latter constituting the firm’s premium segment. Most of the firm’s revenue and nearly all its gross profit come from subscribers, who pay a monthly fee to access a music library that includes most of the most popular songs ever recorded, including all from the major record labels. The firm also offers access to audiobooks and integrates podcasts within its standard music app. Podcast content is not exclusive and is typically free to access on other platforms. Ad-supported users can access a similar music catalog, but cannot customize a similar on-demand experience.

PDD Holdings operates commerce businesses in over 80 countries globally. Its main operations are Pinduoduo, a social commerce platform in China, and Temu, a global e-commerce marketplace. PDD also has a community group purchase business in China. PDD has built a network of sourcing, logistics, and fulfillment capabilities that support its underlying businesses.

Airbnb is the world’s largest online alternative accommodation travel agency; it also offers booking services for boutique hotels, experiences, and hotel-like services. Airbnb’s platform offers over 9 million active accommodation listings. Listings from the company’s 5 million-plus hosts are spread over almost every country in the world. In 2025, 42% of revenue was from North America, 39% from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, 10% from Latin America, and 9% from Asia-Pacific. Transaction fees for online bookings account for all its revenue.

MercadoLibre runs the largest e-commerce marketplace in Latin America, with about 150 million active users and more than 600 million active listings across 18 countries stitching into its commerce network or fintech solutions when last reported. The company operates a host of complementary businesses to its core online shop, with shipping solutions (Mercado Envios), a payment and financing operation (Mercado Pago and Mercado Credito), advertisements (Mercado Clics), classifieds, and a turnkey e-commerce solution (Mercado Shops) rounding out its arsenal. MercadoLibre generates revenue from final value fees, advertising royalties, payment processing, insertion fees, subscription fees, and interest income from consumer and small-business lending.

Comcast is made up of three parts. The core cable business owns networks capable of providing television, internet access, and phone services to 65 million US homes and businesses, or nearly half of the country. The firm provides services to about 47% of the locations in this territory. Comcast acquired NBCUniversal from General Electric in 2011. Following the spinoff of several cable networks, including CNBC, MSNBC, and USA, NBCU now consists of the NBC network, several local NBC affiliates, Bravo, the Peacock streaming platform, Universal Studios, and several theme parks. Finally, Sky, acquired in 2018, is a large television provider in the UK and Italy.

Founded in 2013 within the confines of the San Francisco application renaissance, DoorDash is an online delivery demand aggregator. Consumers can use its app to order food on demand for delivery or in-store pickup from participating merchants. Following the 2022 acquisition of Wolt, the firm also provides this service in Europe and Asia. DoorDash creates a marketplace for merchants to establish an online presence, market their offerings, and meet demand through delivery. The firm provides similar services to non-restaurant businesses, such as grocery, retail, and pet supplies. DoorDash is also rolling out emerging technologies, such as drone delivery, to continually innovate and deliver the best possible service to both supply-side and demand-side participants in its marketplace.

Prosus is a consumer internet group with listed and unlisted platforms across 100 countries. Around 80% of Prosus’ net asset value is derived from its Tencent holdings, the world’s largest game publisher and operator of WeChat, China’s super app with 1.3 billion users. Prosus has approximately a 23% stake in Tencent. The rest of the group’s businesses and investments are organized into classifieds, food delivery, payments and fintech, and edtech. This includes ownership of iFood, Brazil’s largest food delivery app, and a 25% stake in Swiggy, the second-largest delivery platform in India.In 2019, Prosus was spun out of South Africa-based parent company Naspers Ltd and listed on the Euronext exchange. Naspers holds approximately 75% of Prosus’ shares.

Carvana Co is an e-commerce platform for buying and selling used cars. The company derives revenue from used vehicle sales, wholesale vehicle sales and other sales and revenues. The other sales and revenues include sales of loans originated and sold in securitization transactions or to financing partners, commissions received on VSCs and sales of GAP waiver coverage. The foundation of the business is retail vehicle unit sales. This drives the majority of the revenue and allows the company to capture additional revenue streams associated with financing, VSCs, auto insurance and GAP waiver coverage, as well as trade-in vehicles.

Founded in the late 1990s as an internet portal, NetEase has evolved into China’s second-largest online gaming company. Its early success was anchored by the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Fantasy Westward Journey, which laid the foundation for a durable franchise strategy. Over the past decade, the company has expanded its portfolio with successful titles such as Justice, Identity V, Naraka: Bladepoint, and Eggy Party, all of which continue to maintain sizable and engaged player bases.In addition to its in-house development capabilities, NetEase partners with global IP holders such as Microsoft and Marvel to develop and publish titles based on established franchises, including World of Warcraft, Diablo Immortal, and Marvel Rivals, further strengthening its global presence.

Warner Bros. Discovery operates in three segments: streaming, studios, and linear networks. In 2026, it intends to split its networks from streaming and studios to form two separate companies. The streaming business includes HBO Max, which is rapidly increasing its international footprint in addition to its major presence in the US. Studios include industry leaders in both film and television, which produce movies and television series that are monetized in multiple ways, including theatrical release, sales to third parties, and feeding into Warner's own platforms. global networks consist of basic cable networks like CNN, TNT, TBS, Discovery, HGTV, and The Food Network. The Discovery+ streaming service will remain part of global networks.

Sea started as a gaming business, Garena, but in 2015 expanded into e-commerce. Sea operates Southeast Asia's largest e-commerce company, Shopee, in terms of gross merchandise value. Shopee is a hybrid C2C and B2C marketplace platform operating in Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brazil. For Garena, Free Fire is the key revenue generating game. Sea’s third business, SeaMoney, provides lending, payment, digital banking, and insurance services.As of March 31, 2025, Forrest Xiaodong Li, the founder, chairman and CEO, owned 59.1% of voting power. Tencent owned 18.5% of issued shares with no voting power.

Meituan is the largest food delivery platform in China, with a 60%-70% share of the market in 2024, according to Morningstar estimates. In the third quarter of 2024, the firm generated 74% of its revenue from the core local commerce segment, which includes on-demand food delivery and retail, in-store services (such as visiting beauty and entertainment stores after purchasing deals on Meituan), and hotel and travel booking. The remaining 26% of revenue came from the new initiatives segment, such as the community group purchase business Meituan Select and the overseas food delivery business.

EBay operates one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in the world, with $79.6 billion in 2025 gross merchandise volume, rendering the firm a top 10 global e-commerce company. It generates sales from listing fees, advertising, revenue-sharing arrangements with service providers, and managed payments, with its platform connecting about 135 million buyers and roughly 20 million sellers across almost 190 global markets at the end of 2025. EBay generates just north of 50% of its GMV in international markets, with a large presence in the UK, Germany, and Australia.

East Money Information Co Ltd is engaged in securities business, financial e-commerce service business, financial data service business, and Internet advertising service business. It mainly provides paid financial data services, financial e-commerce services, and Internet advertisement services through its Website, eastmoney.com. It generates majority of ots revenue from the securities business.

Rocket Companies is a financial services company that was originally founded as Rock Financial in 1985 and is currently based in Detroit. Rocket Companies offers a wide array of services and products but is best known for its Rocket Mortgage business. The company’s mortgage lending operations are split between its direct-to-consumer lending, which sees borrowers accessing the company’s lending arm directly through either its mobile app or website, and its partner network where mortgage brokers and other firms use Rocket’s origination process to offer loans to their customers. The company has rapidly gained market share in recent years and will also be the largest mortgage servicer in the US following its acquisition of the Mr. Cooper Group.

Expedia is the world's second-largest online travel agency by bookings, offering services for lodging (80% of total 2024 sales), air tickets (3%), rental cars, cruises, in-destination, and other (10%), and advertising revenue (7%). Expedia operates a number of branded travel booking sites, but its three core online travel agency brands are Expedia, Hotels.com, and alternative accommodations brand Vrbo. It also has a metasearch brand, Trivago. Transaction fees for online bookings account for the bulk of sales and profits.

Naspers Ltd is an Internet and entertainment group and technology investor in the world. Operating in more than 120 countries and markets with long-term growth potential, Naspers builds companies that empower people and enrich communities. It runs some of the platforms in the internet, video entertainment, and media. Naspers operates in various sectors including online classifieds, food delivery, payments, travel, education, health, and social and internet platforms. People use products and services of companies that Naspers has invested in, acquired, or built, including Azos, PharmEasy, ElasticRun, Alwans, and Vegrow among others. Geographically, the company derives maximum revenue from Europe and the rest from Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, and other regions.

Reddit is a social media platform where users can engage in conversations, explore, and create communities centered around their interests. Founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, Reddit has evolved into a vast network of user-generated content organized into specialized forums known as "subreddits." The platform's unique community-driven model relies on volunteer moderators to manage content and maintain subreddit guidelines. Reddit generates revenue through advertising, Premium Memberships, and data licensing agreements.

Zomato (legal name Eternal Ltd) is an online food service platform. The customers use the platform to search and discover restaurants, read and write customer-generated reviews and view and upload photos, order food delivery, book a table, and make payments while dining out at restaurants. It also provides a platform for Restaurant partners and Brands to advertise themselves to the target audience in India and abroad and supplies high-quality ingredients to Restaurant partners. Its reportable segments include India food ordering and delivery; Hyperpure supplies, Quick commerce business, Going Out, and All other segments. The company generates maximum revenue from the India food ordering and delivery segment.

Baidu is the largest internet search engine in China with over 50% share of the search engine market in 2024 per web analytics firm, Statcounter. The firm generated 70% of core revenue from online marketing services from its search engine in 2024. Outside its search engine, Baidu is a technology-driven company and its other major growth initiatives are artificial intelligence cloud, video streaming services, voice recognition technology, and autonomous driving.

Based in Dallas, Copart operates an online salvage vehicle auction with operations in 11 countries across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, facilitating over 4 million transactions annually. The company utilizes its virtual bidding platform, VB3, to connect vehicle sellers with over 750,000 registered buyers around the world. Buyers primarily consist of vehicle dismantlers, rebuilders, individuals and used vehicle retailers. About 80% of Copart’s vehicle volume is supplied by auto insurance companies holding vehicles deemed a total loss. Copart also offers services such as vehicle transportation, storage, title transfer, and salvage value estimation. The company primarily operates on a consignment basis and collects fees based on the vehicle’s final selling price.

Bending Spoons SpA acquires and operates digital businesses, focusing on business transformation and operational optimization. Its activities include acquiring companies, implementing operational improvements, and reinvesting in additional acquisitions. The company owns AOL, Brightcove, Eventbrite, Evernote, Harvest, Komoot, Meetup, Remini, StreamYard, Vimeo, and WeTransfer. The majority of revenue is derived from subscriptions, by selling term-based access to its products to individuals and organizations, and the rest from advertising and other sources.

Trip.com is the largest online travel agent in China and is positioned to benefit from the country's rising demand for higher-margin outbound travel as passport penetration is only 12% in China. The company generated about 79% of sales from accommodation reservations and transportation ticketing in 2024. The rest of revenue comes from package tours and corporate travel. Before the pandemic in 2019, the company generated 25% of revenue from international travel, which is important to its margin expansion. Most of sales come from its domestic platform, but the company is expanding its overseas business. The competes in a crowded OTA industry in China, including Meituan, Alibaba-backed Fliggy, Tongcheng, and Qunar. The company was founded in 1999 and listed on the Nasdaq in December 2003.

LY is a leading Japanese internet services conglomerate. Its main services are Yahoo Japan, the oldest portal site in Japan that offers a wide variety of services, such as news, e-commerce, financial information, and Line, a national messenger application. In 2019, the company acquired Zozo, a leading online apparel retailer, to grow its e-commerce business. In 2022, LY consolidated with its wholly owned subsidiary PayPay, the most popular QR code payment service in Japan.

Roku enables consumers to stream television programming. It has more than 90 million streaming households and provided 145 billion streaming hours in 2025. Roku is the top streaming operating system in the US, reaching more than half of broadband households, according to the company. Roku’s OS is built into streaming devices and televisions that Roku sells and on connected televisions from other manufacturers that license Roku’s name and software. Roku also operates the Roku Channel, a free, ad-supported streaming television platform that offers a mix of on-demand and live television programming. Roku generates revenue primarily from selling devices, licensing, and advertising, and it receives fees from subscription streaming platforms that sell subscriptions through Roku.

KE Holdings, or Beike, is a large residential real estate sales and rental brokerage company in China. Founded in 2001, the company operates through self-owned Lianjia stores in Beijing and Shanghai and connected third-party agencies, including franchise brand Deyou in other cities, with commissions charged on existing-home and new-home transactions. Leveraging an online-offline hybrid model, Beike also attract clients through its namesake online marketplace. The company tapped into home renovation services by acquiring Shengdu Home Decoration in 2022. As of the end of 2025, Beike’s co-founders collectively control the company, while Tencent and its affiliates share 8% of voting power.

News Corporation is a diversified media and information services conglomerate with significant presence in the US, the UK, and Australia. Key mastheads include The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, New York Post, The Times, The Sun, The Australian, Herald Sun, and The Daily Telegraph. Its 61%-owned REA Group is the dominant property listings platform in Australia. In addition, it owns Harper Collins, one of the largest book publishers in the world, and has a sizable US digital property advertising business, Move. The 65% interest in Foxtel, the Australian pay-TV and streaming provider, was sold in April 2025. The sale to global sports streaming platform, DAZN, was struck at more than 7 times Foxtel's EBITDA.

Kuaishou Technology is a social media platform where users create, watch, and share short-form videos. Approximately half of the company’s revenue comes from advertising. Additionally, Kuaishou generates revenue through livestreaming, where fans purchase virtual gifts to tip hosts. The platform also features livestreaming e-commerce, enabling users to buy products showcased in videos, with Kuaishou earning a commission on each transaction. Kuaishou’s primary competitors are ByteDance’s Douyin and Tencent’s Video Accounts. Notably, Tencent owns a 16% stake in Kuaishou.

DiDi Global Inc is a mobility technology platform that provides a range of mobility services as well as other services. It is building four key components of its platform that work together to improve the consumer experience: shared mobility; energy and vehicle services; electric mobility; and autonomous driving. It is a go-to brand in China for shared mobility, providing consumers with a range of safe, affordable, and convenient mobility services, including ride-hailing, taxi-hailing, chauffeur, hitch, and other forms of shared mobility. The company operates in three segments: China Mobility, which mainly includes ride-hailing services to riders, and also acts as an agent by connecting end-users to service providers who provide taxi hailing; International; and Other Initiatives.

RB Global has evolved into a leading global marketplace that connects buyers and sellers of commercial assets and vehicles. It is the result of the 2023 combination of Ritchie Bros. and IAA. Ritchie Bros.' roots were as an auctioneer facilitating transactions of commercial, construction, and transportation equipment (excavators, bulldozers, forklifts, and commercial trucks and trailers). However, it has evolved into an omnichannel marketplace. IAA has similar roots, though primarily focused on the salvage auction segment for consumer automobiles. The group provides ancillary services including title processing, transportation/towing, financing, data and appraisal, and so on. Its activities are international, though skewing approximately two-thirds to North America.

REA Group is a technology company operating in the real estate sector. REA Group’s primary business is an online listings platform for residential real estate, www.realestate.com.au, which is the largest residential real estate listings platform in Australia, at around 4 times the size of number two, www.domain.com.au. REA Group is majority-owned by News Corp. REA Group’s other businesses include adjacent markets and services, and investments in online listings platforms in India.

Founded in 2011, Delivery Hero is an online delivery demand aggregator. The company is headquartered in Germany and operates in over 70 countries across Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Delivery Hero creates a marketplace for merchants to establish an online presence, market their offerings, and meet demand through delivery. Nearly half of Delivery Hero’s revenue is commission fees from merchants. Through its applications, which vary by region, customers can order meals, grocery items, pharmacy products, and retail goods. In addition, Delivery Hero operates Dmarts.

CoStar Group is a leading provider of commercial real estate data and marketplace listing platforms. Its data offering contains in-depth analytical information on over 5 million commercial real estate properties related to various subsectors spanning office, retail, hotels, multifamily, healthcare, industrial, self-storage, and data centers. It operates many well-respected brands such as CoStar Suite, LoopNet, Apartments.com, BizBuySell, and Lands of America, with more than 80% of its revenue classified as subscription-based. The company recently expanded its presence into Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France.

Allegro is a large Polish holding company with a suite of complementary online retail properties including Ceneo (price comparisons), EBilet (live events tickets), We|Do (courier services), and the Mall Group (online and offline retail in adjacent Central European markets). The firm is best known for its eponymous e-commerce marketplace, which generates predominantly third-party product sales across the home and garden, electronics, health and beauty, automotive, and supermarket categories. The operator boasts 45% to 50% share of the Polish e-commerce market by GMV, per our calculations and PWC data, and has built out a suite of ecosystem functionality that includes financial, logistics, and advertising services.

Founded in 2012, Grab provides ride-sharing services, food and grocery delivery, and financial services (payments, consumer loans, and enterprise offerings) in eight Southeast-Asian countries through its mobile platform. The company partners with merchants and riders, connecting them with consumers while charging commission to both sides. Grab has a leading market share in and derives 89% of its revenue from its core businesses, ride-sharing and food delivery. Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia contributed more than 70% of revenue in 2024. Grab’s main competitors in Southeast Asia are Line Man and Goto. Its financial services business is still in its nascent stage and provides minimal revenue currently. The company now also generates advertising revenue.

Maplebear (Instacart) is a grocery-focused delivery marketplace that connects national and regional grocers with consumers and couriers, and consumers with their favorite stores. Its app provides on-demand convenience for consumers, allows couriers to earn income, and helps grocers to scale their business through digital channels. The marketplace gathers valuable consumer behavior data, attracting consumer-packaged-goods advertisers that seek to reach consumers at the point of purchase. With approximately 600,000 shoppers and 1,800 retail partners, Instacart delivers to about 98% of households in the United States and Canada.

Kakao Corp is a technology and platform company engaged in digital services, content, mobility, and financial technology businesses. The company operates through seven reportable segments. The Kakao segment provides advertising and platform-based service offerings. The Kakao Games segment covers game development, publishing, and related services. The Kakao Entertainment segment focuses on entertainment planning and content production, and distribution. Kakao Mobility offers database-based information provision services, while Kakao Pay provides mobile platform-based financial services. Kakao Piccoma operates a platform for webtoon and web-novel supply, and the SM Entertainment segment engages in entertainment planning and content production.

New York Times Co is an American media company known for publishing its flagship newspaper, The New York Times. The company also operates the International New York Times newspaper, as well as digital properties such as NYTimes and various smartphone applications. The company derives revenue from subscriptions, advertising, and other sources, where the majority of its revenue is generated through subscriptions, which consist of income from standalone and multiproduct bundle subscriptions to its digital products and subscriptions to and single-copy and bulk sales of print products.

Pinterest is a social media platform with a focus on product and idea discovery. Pinterest users, or pinners, can leverage the platform as they go about gathering ideas on topics such as home improvement, fashion, cooking, and travel. The company has more than 500 million monthly active users, two thirds of whom are female. Pinterest generates revenue by selling digital ads on its platform. While the platform’s user base spans the globe, the vast majority of its revenue stems from ads shown to North American users.