Vmware Inc's Competitiveness
A competitive positioning analysis and financial ratio benchmarking of Vmware Inc (VMW) against its publicly traded competitors: sales growth, net income, profitability, valuation and market share, plus each peer's market capitalization, revenue, income and employees. Free below: the top 5 peers. Subscriber access adds the full competitor list and CSV downloads.
Key Findings: Vmware Inc vs Its Competitors
- TTM: Trailing 12-month revenue of 13,611M vs 179,966M combined for tracked competitors (7.0% combined share).
- Trending: Latest-quarter revenue run-rate is holding steady (+0.2% annualized vs trailing 12 months), vs decelerating (-14.9%) for its tracked peer group.
- Growth: Vmware Inc generated 2.2% revenue growth year over year in Q2 2023, vs 8.3% for its tracked competitors combined.
- Profitability: Its 14.0% net margin compares with 15.9% for the peer group.
- Peer revenue share: Vmware Inc accounted for 8.2% of combined revenue among its tracked peer group, down from 8.6% a year earlier.
- Peer differentiation: Revenue per employee of $0.36M compares with $0.40M for the peer group (0.9x).
Every figure above is sourced and cited in detail further down this page (Market Structure, Profitability & Cost Structure, Productivity vs Peers).
VMW Sales vs. its Competitors, Q2 2023
Vmware Inc reported revenue growth of 2.16 % year on year in Q2 2023, below its competitors' combined revenue growth of 8.28 %.
With a net margin of 14.00 %, Vmware Inc reported lower profitability than its competitors (15.91 %).
Vmware Inc generated 8.18 % of the combined sales of its peer group, down from 8.62 % a year earlier.
Vmware Inc vs. its Competitors, Q2 2023
Revenue growth, year on year
Net income growth, year on year
Net margin
Revenue run-rate vs trailing 12 months
TTM net margin
TTM = trailing twelve months. Run-rate annualizes the latest quarter (×4) and compares it to TTM. In millions of $. High-Confidence Competitors are named as a competitor directly in an SEC filing; Similar-Size Competitors are the closest peers by market-cap rank within the same industry; Similar Growth & Profitability Competitors are the closest peers by combined revenue growth, operating margin and ROIC, all independent of the competitor list.
TTM revenue, latest-quarter run-rate and net income/margin benchmarked across Vmware Inc and its 4 competitor groupings. Available under Commercial License.
| Entity | TTM Revenue | Rev Run-rate vs TTM |
|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
| Competitors combined | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
| High-Confidence Competitors (23) | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
| Similar Growth & Profitability (4) | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
TTM revenue, run-rate and net margin benchmarking across Vmware Inc's competitor groups requires a Commercial License.
For context: the Software & Programming industry grew revenue 16.0% year over year, combined, vs 2.2% for Vmware Inc. Vmware Inc's share of combined industry revenue moved from 1.21% to 1.06%, a loss of 0.14 percentage points.
Vmware Inc's Competitor Quality Breadth
Share of each group, trailing 12 months: profitable (net margin > 0), expanding (revenue growth > 0), growing faster than the industry's own median, and financially distressed (Piotroski F-Score of 2 or below).
| Entity | Profitable | Expanding | Above Industry Growth | Distressed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Competitors combined (15) | ||||
| High-Confidence Competitors (28) | ||||
| Similar Growth & Profitability (8) | 100.00 % (8 of 8) | 87.50 % (7 of 8) | 0.00 % (0 of 8) | 12.50 % (1 of 8) |
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. Altman Z-Score is not shown here: it is not populated in the underlying data for any company. Percentages are of companies in each group that report the relevant metric, not of the full group size.
VMW Stock Performance relative to its Competitors
VMW Stock Performance relative to High-Confidence Competitors
VMW Stock Performance relative to Similar Growth & Profitability Competitors
5 Best-Performing Tracked Competitors, Trailing 12 Months
| # | Competitor | TTM Share Price Return | vs U.S.A. 500 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Digitalocean Holdings Inc | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 2 | Marvell Technology Inc | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 3 | Rackspace Technology Inc | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 4 | Fortinet Inc | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 5 | Jfrog Ltd | 282.9% | Outperformed |
TTM share price return and U.S.A. 500 outperformance for Vmware Inc's best-performing tracked competitors requires a Commercial License.
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months.
Vmware Inc's Comment on Competition and Industry Peers
We face intense competition across all markets for our products and services.
We believe that the key factors in our ability to successfully compete include
the level of reliability, interoperability and new functionality of our product
and service offerings; the ability of our product offerings to support multiple
hardware platforms, operating systems, applications frameworks and public cloud
platforms; our ability to anticipate customer needs in rapidly evolving markets
for IT resources; the pricing of our product and service offerings; the ability
to integrate open source technologies that are critical in private and public
cloud computing architectures; the ability to attract and retain key employees;
and the ability to maintain and expand our ecosystem of technology partners,
service providers and sales channel partners. While we believe that we are a
technology leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions and have
a strong, favorable image with our customers, many of our current or potential
competitors have longer operating histories, greater name recognition, larger
customer bases and significantly greater financial, technical, sales, marketing
and other resources than we do. Additionally, the adoption of public cloud,
micro-services, containers and open source technologies has the potential to
erode our profitability.
We face competition from, among others:
Providers of public cloud infrastructure and SaaS-based offerings. As businesses
increasingly utilize public cloud and SaaS-based offerings, they are building
more of their new compute workloads off-premises and may also shift some of
their existing workloads. As a result, the demand for on-premises IT resources
is expected to slow, and our products and services will need to increasingly
compete for customers’ IT workloads with off-premises public cloud and
SaaS-based offerings. If our private, hybrid and public cloud products and services
fail to address evolving customer requirements, the demand for our virtualization
products and services may decline, and we could experience lower growth. Additionally,
VCPP offerings from our partners may compete directly with infrastructure-as-a-service
(“IaaS”) offerings from various public cloud providers such as AWS
and Microsoft. In fiscal 2018, we made VMware Cloud on AWS, a strategic alliance
with AWS to deliver a vSphere-based cloud service running in AWS data centers,
available in certain geographies. Our strategic alliance with Amazon may also
be seen as competitive with VCPP offerings and adversely affect our relationship
with VCPP partners, while some VCPP partners may elect to include VMware Cloud
on AWS as part of their managed services provider offerings.
Large, diversified enterprise software and hardware companies. These competitors supply a wide variety of products and services to, and have well-established relationships with, our current and prospective end users. For example, small- to medium-sized businesses and companies in emerging markets that are evaluating the adoption of virtualization-based technologies and solutions may be inclined to consider Microsoft solutions because of their existing use of Windows and Office products. Some of these competitors have in the past and may in the future take advantage of their existing relationships to engage in business practices that make our products and services less attractive to our end users. Other competitors have limited or denied support for their applications running in VMware virtualization environments. In addition, these competitors could integrate competitive capabilities into their existing products and services and make them available without additional charge. For example, Oracle provides free server virtualization software intended to support Oracle and non-Oracle applications, Microsoft offers its own server, network, and storage virtualization software packaged with its Windows Server product, as well as built-in virtualization in the client version of Windows and Cisco includes network virtualization technology in many of their data center networking platforms. As a result, existing and prospective VMware customers may elect to use products that are perceived to be “free” or “very low cost” instead of purchasing VMware products and services for certain applications where they do not believe that more advanced and robust capabilities are required.
Companies offering competing platforms based on open source technologies. Open
source technologies for virtualization, containerization and cloud platforms
such as Xen, KVM, Docker, Rocket, OpenStack, Mesos, Kubernetes appear to provide
pricing competition and enable competing vendors to leverage these open source
technologies to compete directly with our SDDC initiative. Enterprises and service
providers have shown interest in building their own clouds based on open source
projects such as OpenStack, and other companies have indicated their intention
to expand offerings of virtual management and cloud computing solutions as well.
Additionally, a number of enterprise IT hardware vendors have released solutions
based on OpenStack including IBM and Cisco. VMware is delivering container technologies
such as PKS, which we co-developed and market in partnership with Pivotal, and
vSphere Integrated Containers that are designed to help customers adopt micro-services
architectures. The adoption of distributed micro-service application architectures,
and their alignment with container technologies, represents an emerging area
of competition.
Other industry alliances. Many of our competitors have entered into or extended
partnerships or other strategic relationships to offer more comprehensive virtualization
and cloud computing solutions than they individually had offered. We expect
these trends to continue as companies attempt to strengthen or maintain their
positions in the evolving virtualization infrastructure and enterprise IT solutions
industry. These alliances may result in more compelling product and service
offerings than we offer.
Our partners and members of our developer and technology partner ecosystem.
We face competition from our partners. For example, third parties currently
selling our products and services could build and market their own competing
products and services or market competing products and services of other vendors.
Additionally, as formerly distinct sectors of enterprise IT such as software-based
virtualization and hardware-based server, networking and storage solutions converge,
we also increasingly compete with companies who are members of our developer
and technology partner ecosystem. Consequently, we may find it more difficult
to continue to work together productively on other projects, and the advantages
we derive from our ecosystem could diminish. This competition could result in
increased pricing pressure and sales and marketing expenses, thereby materially
reducing our operating margins, and could also prevent our new products and
services from gaining market acceptance, thereby harming our ability to increase,
or causing us to lose, market share.
Publicly Traded Peers of Vmware Inc
Revenue and income for trailing 12 months, in millions of $, except employees| Company | Market Cap | Revenues |
|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | 61,849.14 | 13,611.00 |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | 481,578.75 | 6,156.87 |
| Cisco Systems Inc | 425,572.38 | 63,325.00 |
| Arista Networks inc | 261,477.92 | 10,540.50 |
| Marvell Technology Inc | 225,022.27 | 8,715.90 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | 210,356.66 | 69,096.00 |
| SUBTOTAL | 1,891,806.70 | 193,877.94 |
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Sources: Vmware Inc's official press releases and regulatory filings; CSIMarket.com's market research; and the financial filings and press releases of the other companies cited.
Updated on:
Focus of this report: publicly traded companies. Ten additional tables on Vmware Inc versus competitors, including market share analysis, are in the navigation menu under Competition. To download the tables, please subscribe.
Vmware Inc's Competitors Named by the Company
Competitive relationships identified from SEC filings and corroborating sources, each with a basis and confidence.| Competitor | Basis | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Arista Networks inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Fortinet Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Jamf Holding Corp | Named by the company | 85% |
| Hashicorp Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Microsoft Corporation | Named by the company | 85% |
| AWS | Named by the company | 85% |
| Datadog | Named by the company | 85% |
| Okta | Named by the company | 85% |
| Elastic N v | Named by the company | 85% |
| Inuvo Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Sentinelone Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Carbon Black Inc. | Named by the company | 85% |
| McAfee | Named by the company | 85% |
| Trend Micro | Named by the company | 85% |
| Crowdstrike Holdings Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Nutanix Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Azure | Named by the company | 85% |
| Google Cloud | Named by the company | 85% |
| Red Hat | Named by the company | 85% |
| A10 Networks Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| F5 Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Splunk Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Cylance, Inc. | Named by the company | 85% |
| NortonLifeLock | Named by the company | 85% |
| Zscaler | Named by the company | 85% |
| Citrix Systems Inc. | Named by the company | 85% |
| Qualys Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Blackberry Limited | Named by the company | 85% |
| IBM | Named by the company | 85% |
| ServiceNow | Named by the company | 85% |
| Pc Connection Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Jfrog Ltd | Named by the company | 85% |
| Marvell Technology Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
| Rackspace Technology Inc | Named by the company | 85% |
Filing basis, confidence, active dates and source counts for Vmware Inc's named competitors require a Commercial License.
Methodology: relationships are extracted from SEC filings (named-competitor disclosures) and corroborating sources. Named by the company = explicitly disclosed as a competitor; Inferred = derived from corroborating signals. Confidence reflects evidence strength.
Vmware Inc's Business Segment Mix vs Peers
Revenue by operating segment or division, as named and reported by each company. Segment names are the filer's own and are not standardized across companies. Do not assume a same-named or similarly-named segment is defined identically between two companies. Shares are of each company's own total revenue and are not required to sum to 100% (intersegment revenue, unallocated items).| Company | Largest Segment |
|---|---|
| Palantir Technologies Inc | Government Operating 51.15 % |
| Cisco Systems Inc | Americas 60.41 % |
| Marvell Technology Inc | Reportable 100.00 % |
| International Business Machines Corporation | Software 45.22 % |
| Rackspace Technology Inc | Public Cloud Services 60.71 % |
Source: operating segment revenue as reported in each company's SEC filings (10-K/10-Q), via the CSIMarket API, leaf-level reportable segments only (parent roll-up segments are excluded where sub-segments are separately disclosed).
Vmware Inc's Productivity vs Peers Comparison
Revenue and income per employee, trailing 12 months, in $; market cap in millions of $| Company | Market Cap | Revenue / Employee | Income / Employee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | 61,849 | 358,184 | 37,526 |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | 481,579 | 1,390,126 | 684,290 |
| Cisco Systems Inc | 425,572 | 768,507 | 161,007 |
| Arista Networks inc | 261,478 | 2,060,704 | 790,733 |
| Marvell Technology Inc | 225,022 | 1,165,227 | 676,350 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | 210,357 | 226,322 | 35,129 |
| PEERS TOTAL | 1,829,958 | 396,316 | 87,851 |
Vmware Inc's Geographic Revenue Exposure vs Peers
Revenue by country/region as reported in each company's most recent filing. Disclosure granularity varies by filer (some report by country, others by broad region) and is shown as disclosed.| Company | Largest Market |
|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | Non-US 52.44 % |
| Arista Networks inc | Americas 84.54 % |
| Marvell Technology Inc | China 43.75 % |
| International Business Machines Corporation | Americas 49.04 % |
| Fortinet Inc | EMEA 42.44 % |
| Splunk Inc | United States 68.97 % |
Source: revenue geography as reported in each company's SEC filings (10-K/10-Q), via the CSIMarket API. Percentages are of that company's own total consolidated revenue for its most recent reported period.
Vmware Inc's Profitability & Cost Structure
Trailing 12-month margins from SEC-filed financials. Operating margin is compared to the Software & Programming industry median; gross margin, EBITDA margin and capital intensity are compared to the live industry average (343 companies).| Metric | Company | Industry | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross Margin | 95.20 % | 64.28 % (avg) | +30.9 pp |
| Operating Margin | 16.67 % | industry median | +33.2 pp |
| EBITDA Margin | 23.97 % | 2.53 % (avg) | +21.4 pp |
| Capital Intensity (Capex / Revenue) | 3.16 % | 4.79 % (avg) | -1.6 pp |
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. SG&A and R&D as a share of revenue have limited coverage as this data is backfilled and appear only where reported. Higher capital intensity is not inherently negative; it reflects the industry's asset requirements.
Vmware Inc's Valuation vs Competitive Position
Valuation multiples vs the Software & Programming industry average (343 companies, excluding loss-making/negative-equity outliers), alongside returns on capital for context on whether a premium or discount lines up with measurably stronger or weaker returns.| Metric | Company | Industry Average | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| P/E | 41.9x | 39.5x | +2.5x |
| EV / EBITDA | 20.0x | 21.7x | -1.7x |
| P/B | 35.8x | 5.4x | +30.4x |
| Return on Equity | 84.45 % | industry aggregate | 66.59 % |
| Return on Invested Capital | 8.54 % | -0.26 % (avg) | 8.80 % |
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. A valuation premium or discount is not, by itself, a judgment of over- or under-valuation. Compare it against the return and growth context shown elsewhere on this page.
Vmware Inc's Multi-Year Financial Trajectory
Fiscal-year revenue growth, operating margin, return on invested capital and P/E, as reported in SEC filings.| Metric | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | 8.88 % | 7.94 % | 11.67 % | 13.29 % | 20.47 % | 23.09 % | 9.21 % | 3.88 % |
| Operating Margin | 18.22 % | 20.29 % | -6.43 % | 22.84 % | 13.33 % | 9.01 % | 18.47 % | 17.88 % |
| Return on Invested Capital | 6.40 % | 7.08 % | -2.35 % | 8.62 % | 7.93 % | 4.10 % | 7.85 % | 9.63 % |
| P/E | 23.2x | 28.8x | 93.2x | 25.8x | 10.1x | 10.1x | 28.1x | 38.9x |
Source: CSIMarket API, fiscal-year figures. P/E is this company's own historical ratio at each fiscal year end and can swing sharply around an earnings trough: that is real, not a data error.
Vmware Inc's Strategic Group Map
Every company in Vmware Inc's industry and named-competitor list, plotted by trailing 12-month revenue growth and operating margin. Vmware Inc is shown in red; its closest peers by combined growth, margin and ROIC (the Similar Growth & Profitability group above) are labeled.
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. Extreme outlier values (from near-zero-revenue companies) are excluded from the plotted cloud but never from the highlighted company or its labeled peers.
Vmware Inc's Competitive Forces (Porter's Five Forces)
Only the forces this data can support honestly are shown; the other three are marked as such rather than guessed.| Force | Assessment | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Barriers to Entry | Lower than typical for the industry | Capital intensity (capex / revenue) of 3.16 % vs industry average 4.79 % (see Profitability & Cost Structure above) |
| Supplier Power | Not covered on this page | See Vmware Inc's dedicated suppliers page for concentration and dependency data |
| Buyer Power | Not covered on this page | See Vmware Inc's dedicated customers page for concentration and dependency data |
| Threat of Substitutes | - | No systematic data source for cross-product substitution exists in this system; not estimated |
Note: this is a partial, data-grounded application of the framework, not a complete strategic assessment. Rivalry and barriers-to-entry readings are mechanical translations of the HHI and capital-intensity figures shown elsewhere on this page, not independent judgments.
Vmware Inc's Industry Attractiveness & Competitive Strength
A CSIMarket composite, not a standard field: each axis is an equal-weighted average of three factors already shown elsewhere on this page (industry growth, industry profitability and rivalry for attractiveness; relative market share, profitability and growth vs industry for strength). Disclosed as a designed methodology, not a precision measurement.
Vmware Inc falls in the Low attractiveness / Medium strength cell: Harvest.
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. Each axis score is a simple 1(low)/2(medium)/3(high) average across its three inputs -- a transparent, disclosed simplification, not a validated academic scoring model.
Vmware Inc's SWOT
Every point below is a fixed rule applied to a metric already shown elsewhere on this page (Market Structure, Profitability, Valuation, Run-Rate, Stock Performance, Quality Breadth) not an independent strategic assessment. A blank quadrant means no rule was met, not that none apply.Strengths
- Operating margin 33.2 points above the industry median.
- Return on equity 66.6 points above the industry aggregate.
Weaknesses
No rule matched.
Opportunities
- Industry revenue growing at a healthy 11.6% median pace.
Threats
- Tracked peer group's revenue run-rate is broadly decelerating (-14.9% annualized).
Methodology: mechanical, rule-based SWOT. Each bullet reuses a figure already sourced and cited elsewhere on this page; nothing here is generated narrative or independent analyst judgment.
Vmware Inc's Financial Strength vs Peers Comparison
Quick ratio, working capital, debt to equity and asset turnover, trailing 12 months| Company | Quick Ratio | Working Capital | Debt / Equity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | 0.48 | 0.81 | 6.22 |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | 1.40 | 6.94 | - |
| Cisco Systems Inc | 0.25 | 0.94 | 0.63 |
| Arista Networks inc | 0.40 | 3.00 | - |
| Marvell Technology Inc | 0.98 | 2.25 | 0.31 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | 0.29 | 0.87 | 3.47 |
Quick ratio = cash / current liabilities; working capital ratio = current assets / current liabilities; asset turnover = revenue / total assets. Peers in the Blank Checks industry are excluded.
Vmware Inc's Revenue and Income Growth vs Peers
Quarterly revenue and net income growth, year over year and quarter over quarter| Company | Period | Revenue Y/Y | Income Y/Y |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | Q2 2023 | +2.2 % | +37.5 % |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | Q2 2026 | +93.0 % | +224.4 % |
| Cisco Systems Inc | Q2 2026 | +17.6 % | +51.3 % |
| Arista Networks inc | Q2 2026 | +37.7 % | +36.5 % |
| Marvell Technology Inc | Q1 2026 | +27.6 % | -70.1 % |
| International Business Machines Corporation | Q2 2026 | +1.1 % | -1.3 % |
| PEERS TOTAL | +13.4 % | +56.4 % |
Growth is shown only where both periods are positive. Peers in the Blank Checks industry are excluded.
Vmware Inc's Peers' Costs of Sales and Capital Expenditures
Context for revenue growth: peer costs and capex, year over year and quarter over quarter| Company | Period | Costs Y/Y | Capex Y/Y |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | Q2 2023 | -5.1 % | -16.8 % |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | Q2 2026 | +54.6 % | +90.6 % |
| Cisco Systems Inc | Q2 2026 | +14.8 % | +79.7 % |
| Arista Networks inc | Q2 2026 | +46.9 % | +23.8 % |
| Marvell Technology Inc | Q1 2026 | +22.8 % | +30.3 % |
| International Business Machines Corporation | Q2 2026 | +3.6 % | +9.0 % |
Vmware Inc's Returns and Turnover vs Peers
ROA, ROI and ROE (trailing 12 months), receivables and inventory turnover| Company | ROA | ROI | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | 4.67% | 5.73% | 84.45% |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | 31.17% | 34.61% | 37.17% |
| Cisco Systems Inc | 10.64% | 11.94% | 27.52% |
| Arista Networks inc | 19.52% | 27.21% | 30.78% |
| Marvell Technology Inc | 22.14% | 25.02% | 33.73% |
| International Business Machines Corporation | 7.07% | 7.03% | 33.43% |
ROA = net income / total assets; ROI = net income / investments; ROE = net income / equity; turnover ratios use trailing 12 month revenue (receivables) and cost of sales (inventory).
Vmware Inc's Valuation vs Peers
P/E, price to sales, PEG, price to cash flow and price to book| Company | P/E | Price / Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Vmware Inc | 42.92 | 4.54 |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | 160.24 | 78.22 |
| Cisco Systems Inc | 31.96 | 6.72 |
| Arista Networks inc | 487.90 | 24.81 |
| Marvell Technology Inc | 86.39 | 25.82 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | 19.55 | 3.04 |
| PEERS AVERAGE | 45.71 | 9.76 |
P/E = price / diluted EPS (trailing 12 months); PEG = P/E divided by EPS growth; the average row divides the peers' combined market cap by their combined income, sales, cash flow and equity.