Finding and buying industry leaders is a great investment strategy, especially if you can pick up shares at reasonable prices. With so many great areas to invest in, investing in second-tier businesses doesn't make sense.
If you're looking for some market leaders to invest in, here are three to consider.
Amazon
Amazon (AMZN 3.43%) is the undisputed king of e-commerce. Many of Amazon's innovations have been imitated by other commerce companies looking to improve their online presence.
Amazon is also a leader in another area: cloud computing. Cloud computing has become vital for many businesses, as they can run various workloads on offsite servers, including artificial intelligence model generation. Amazon is currently in first place in cloud market share, but competitor Microsoft Azure is getting closer. Still, management is seeing new workloads come online, which should boost revenue throughout 2024.
With Amazon a market leader in at least two industries, it makes for a no-brainer buy. Throw in the fact that Amazon's stock has a price-to-sales ratio beneath where it traded from 2018 to 2022 and it makes for an even better buy now.
AMZN PS Ratio data by YCharts
Procore
Procore (PCOR 0.39%) is much smaller and lesser known than Amazon, but that doesn't mean it isn't dominant in its industry. Procore specializes in construction management software and gives greater visibility to progress and budget for owners and contractors. It also helps reduce costly rework by creating a "single point of truth" all parties work can work from.
Procore is growing at a healthy pace, with revenue rising 29% to $260 million in Q4. 2024 is also expected to be a strong year, with revenue expected to rise around 20%.
With Procore slated to have another strong year of expansion, you'd think investors would be excited about the stock, yet it trades far below where many of its software-as-a-service (SaaS) peers do.
PCOR PS Ratio data by YCharts
But 11 times sales is still a bargain price for Procore, and investors shouldn't hesitate to add shares of this market leader today.
Airbnb
Airbnb (ABNB 0.75%) is the leader in short-term rentals and experiences. Airbnb has continued to succeed despite many predicting its failure due to COVID, a recession, or various cities banning short-term rentals.
It's also improving its user experience. Items like cleaning fees used to be a way for hosts to hide costs until the last second. Now the company says about 40% of listings charge no cleaning fees, making the renter much happier.
Airbnb is also succeeding financially, with Q4 revenue increasing 17% year over year to $2.2 billion thanks to nights and experiences booked rising 12%. With 2024 looking like another strong year for Airbnb, it's also a great buy now thanks to its reasonable valuation of 25 times free cash flow (its price-to-earnings ratio is currently skewed with one-time effects).
Airbnb is a market leader in its niche and could pay off for long-term investors.
