Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) Leads NASDAQ 100 With 59.9% Operating Margin, Outpacing Microsoft And Meta

The Nasdaq 100 features the largest and most influential companies by market value across various sectors, including healthcare, technology, industrials, and energy. Technology firms make up the biggest portion, with over 35 companies, almost half the index. Many tech companies, especially startups and those in growth phases, invest heavily in costly infrastructure and R&D, which weighs on their operating margins. This oversaturation helps explain the sector's low average operating margin of -5.76% in 2025. Yet, some of the market's most efficient and profitable firms, like Nvidia, Meta, and Alphabet, boast margins of upwards of 40%.

With average operating margins of 13.41% in healthcare and 15.81% in pharmaceuticals, companies in these sectors are well represented on the Nasdaq 100, including Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (35.4%), Intuitive Surgical (32%), and AstraZeneca (16.07%). Vertex Pharmaceuticals is the only pharmaceutical company on the Nasdaq index that falls below the industry average, with a TTM operating margin of 2.25%. In Q1 2025, the company reported a non-GAAP operating margin of 31.35%, down from 42.4% in the same quarter the previous year. This decline is due to increased investment in research and development, as well as costs associated with the global launch of new therapies. For instance, in January 2025, the US FDA approved Journavx, a novel non-opioid treatment for moderate to severe acute pain developed by Vertex, the first new pain medicine of its kind approved in 25 years.

Below you can find the full report provided by the research team ofBestBrokers

Today, the world's most resilient companies aren't necessarily those with the fastest growth or biggest headcount, they are often the ones running with tight, strategically engineered operations in a volatile landscape. Whether it's Babcock International riding a defence spending boom to lift its operating margin to 8%, or Meta generating a 201% profit surge after cutting 21,000 jobs and doubling down on AI infrastructure, one message is clear: operational efficiency has become the defining corporate metric in today's margin-driven economy.

Sector differences in operating margin often reflect strategic trade-offs: growth vs. profitability, automation vs. labour, or scale vs. localisation. To illustrate this, the research team at BestBrokers conducted a cross-industry comparison of large-cap companies based on the latest data from CompaniesMarketCap, analysing their operating margins to identify which sectors are achieving the most efficiency.

We discovered that the industries that portray the highest operational efficiency are Port Operations (38.5%), Finances & Investments (32.4%), Tobacco (31.2%), and Railway Operations (30.1%), showing how certain traditional sectors maintain strong average operating margins, despite economic headwinds.

Key Takeaways

• With an estimated operating margin of 99.57%, the Sweden-based holding company Industrivarden ranks first among all companies on our list in terms of operational efficiency.
• The most efficient industries are Port operations (38.5%), followed by Finances & Investments (33.6%) and Railway Operations (30.1%).
• The most efficient automakers are Ferrari (28.7%) and Toyota (15.4%), both far exceeding the industry average of 4.8%.
• The broader tech sector reports an average operating margin of -5.76%, though several standout firms like PT DCI Indonesia Tbk (54.6%), Trimble (54.4%), and Keyence (52.2%) perform well above that.
• Companies in Kuwait score the highest in terms of operating margin across countries (61.8%), followed by Greece (60.2%), and the UAE (54.7%).

Railway & Port Operations companies typically invest huge amounts of money into infrastructure and have minimal marginal costs per shipment after the initial investment. There is also very limited competition in these particular industries. These are just a couple of reasons why their average operating margin is among the highest, 38.47% for Port Operations and 30.13% for Railway Operations. The most efficient companies in these industries are International Container Terminal Services (53.4%) and Adani Ports & SEZ (51.9%), and Canadian National Railway (39.8%) and Union Pacific Corporation (36.2%), respectively.

Financial companies (investors, banks, and financing firms) also record a substantial average operating margin of 33.64%. By borrowing money at significantly lower interest rates, banks are able to turn a major profit. For example, the Dubai Islamic Bank is among the banking companies with the highest operating margin ( 74.38% ) due to the fact that the company's strong fee-based income comes with very low marginal cost. Pure investment companies such as Industrivarden typically have very high operating margins as their main revenue comes from dividends and capital gains from their portfolio companies. The Swedish investment company is a great example, with its operating margin of 99.57%, a clear indicator of very low operating costs relative to its revenue.

The technology sector has the second-lowest average operating margin across all industries at -5.76%, largely due to aggressive spending. Early-stage companies in AI, SaaS, and biotech often operate at a loss for years while scaling, pulling down the industry average. In stark contrast, PT DCI Indonesia tops the list with a 54.6% margin, benefiting from low operating costs, benefits from large-scale operations, and steady income from data centre contracts in a fast-growing Southeast Asian market.

Keyence, one of Japan's most profitable companies, maintains a remarkable 52.2% operating margin by holding zero inventory and outsourcing all production, a model that has proven highly resilient amid ongoing global supply chain disruptions. Meanwhile, AppLovin leverages automation and AI to power its large mobile advertising platform, using algorithms to optimise ad placements and monetise its own game inventory. This approach delivers a solid 37.5% margin, even as global digital ad spending grows more cautiously.

Similarly, tech giants like Microsoft and Meta achieve operating margins above 40%. Microsoft's main source of revenue comes from software and cloud services, both of which are high-margin businesses with low incremental costs. Meta earns a big portion of its revenue via advertising, which also scales profitably once the infrastructure is in place.

At the other side of the spectrum, Nebius Group, a Dutch AI and cloud infrastructure company which recently split from Russian technology giant Yandex has an operating margin of -335.31%. As cloud services demand grows worldwide, Nebius is investing heavily in expanding infrastructure, typical for early-stage tech firms navigating capital-intensive growth phases, especially amid rising interest rates and tighter investment conditions in 2025.

MicroStrategy, a provider of business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services, reports an operating margin of -1,668.47%. This extreme figure largely stems from its multi-billion-dollar Bitcoin acquisitions. MicroStrategy's capital tied to digital assets adds significant financial risk beyond its core software business.

Luxury carmaker Ferrari 's operating margin is 28.7%, nearly double that of Toyota, which holds second place at 15.4%. Unlike traditional automakers, Ferrari produces a significantly lower volume, delivering just 13,752 vehicles in 2024. Its business model, centred on limited production and premium pricing, enables Ferrari to sustain operating margins well above the industry average of 4.8%.

In stark contrast to luxury brands like Porsche and Ferrari, Toyota leads the global market in production efficiency and supply chain management, enabling it to achieve strong margins at scale. The company generates significant profits across a wide range of vehicles, including trucks, sedans, and increasingly, hybrids and plug-in hybrids. This broad lineup helps the Japanese automaker maintain resilience amid tightening regulations and supply chain volatility, securing its second place in efficiency with a 15.4% operating margin.

The lowest operating margins in the auto industry are mostly found among early-stage EV startups heavily investing in R&D, manufacturing, and delivery infrastructure. Rivian, a US electric vehicle startup, is a prime example, with an operating margin of -70.3%. Beyond significant upfront costs, the company also faces ongoing production challenges and supply chain disruptions that further pressure profitability.

As China intensifies its push to lead the EV race, XPeng, one of the country's most promising EV makers, is facing fierce competition from major players like NIO, BYD, and Tesla. This has forced the company to invest heavily in marketing technology advancement, resulting in a relatively low operating margin of -10.26%.

Looking at average operating margins by country, Kuwait (61.8%), Greece (60.2%), and the UAE (54.7%) stand out as top performers. However, each of those has a relatively small number of large cap companies, with between 1 and 8 valued over $10 billion. In the Asia-Pacific, strong averages come from South Korea (30.6%), Australia (28.31%), and Japan (17.7%).

In Europe, standout performers include Belgium (22.4%), Austria (29.8%), and Denmark (25.3%), while larger economies like Germany (7.9%) and France (16.4%) report more moderate averages, likely due to the challenges if balancing legacy industries with the costs if green transition policies and rising labour expenses in 2025.

The United States (0.2%) and the Netherlands (3.00%) have fairly low average operating margins, despite the large number of companies with market caps above $10 billion, over 431 companies in the US and 20 in the Netherlands. This suggests a higher concentration of capital-intensive, high-growth tech startups, and growth-stage companies in these markets, which significantly drags down the averages. Many of these firms are still investing heavily in expansion, driving losses that weigh down the overall averages as investor appetite cools and capital becomes harder to access for high-growth firms.

Methodology

To analyse the disparities in operational efficiency across industries, the team at BestBrokers gathered the latest financial data on 1,189 companies, each with a market capitalisation exceeding $10 billion, across 39 major industries. Operating margin and market cap figures were sourced fromCompaniesMarketCap,Yahoo Finance, andJika, enabling the calculation of average operating margins for each sector. We looked at the quarterly data for operational margins and included figures for the last twelve months (Q2, Q3, and Q4 of 2024, and Q1 of 2025).

To calculate regional averages, all companies with a market capitalisation over $10 billion were grouped by country. As a result, some countries have relatively low company counts. In cases like Colombia, Greece, Hungary, and Romania, where only a single qualifying company is present, the reported operating margin may not accurately reflect the broader financial health of companies in those markets. The same methodology is used when evaluating different industries, thus the companies for each industry that are included in the report differ in number.

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