Southern Copper Corporation SCCO

Competitive advantage analysis · basic-materials

Corporate Default
Overall moat score
90/100
Strong

About Southern Copper Corporation

Southern Copper Corporation engages in mining, exploring, smelting, and refining copper and other minerals in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. The company is involved in the mining, milling, and flotation of copper ore to produce copper and molybdenum concentrates; smelting of copper concentrates to produce blister and anode copper; refining of anode copper to produce copper cathodes; production of … Full SCCO analysis →

Competitive advantage assessment

Key strengths

  • Margins Consistently Above Peers Gross margin at 53.6% (top 9%) and operating margin at 52.2% (top 3%) indicate strong pricing power.
  • Margins Stable Across Cycles Operating margin volatility is low (stability score 0.73), demonstrating pricing resilience across cycles.

The dashed ring is the peer median. Defense scores are percentile ranks against peers, so 50 is roughly the typical company in this group.

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Pricing Power

Strong
86

Where SCCO ranks in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining

Southern Copper Corporation ranks #1 of 86 scored companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining by moat score — the top 1%. That makes it the widest moat in the group.

Moat scores for companies ranked near SCCO in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining
# Company Moat score Rating
1 Southern Copper Corporation SCCO 90/100 Strong
2 BHP Group Limited BHP 88/100 Strong
3 Rio Tinto Plc RIO 83/100 Strong
4 Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. FCX 80/100 Strong
5 Grupo Simec, S.A.B. de C.V. SIM 79/100 Strong
6 Hudbay Minerals Inc. HBM 79/100 Strong
7 Materion Corporation MTRN 78/100 Strong
8 Nexa Resources S.A. NEXA 76/100 Strong
9 Reliance, Inc. RS 75/100 Moderate

See every Commodities & Mining company ranked by moat score →

How SCCO scores on the Corporate Default defenses

Pricing Power

Score 86 · 20% of the moat score

Pricing power is the ability to raise prices without losing volume.

Cost Advantage

Score 98 · 15% of the moat score

A cost advantage means delivering the same product for structurally less — better purchasing, denser distribution, a more automated process.

Customer Stickiness

Score 91 · 15% of the moat score

Stickiness is what makes revenue repeat without being re-won every year.

Capital Efficiency

Score 93 · 18% of the moat score

Capital efficiency asks what the company earns on the money tied up in the business.

Resilience

Score 83 · 17% of the moat score

Resilience is the capacity to get through a bad year on its own terms — enough liquidity, enough interest cover, and enough cash generation to avoid a rescue financing or a forced sale.

Scale & Market Position

Score 90 · 15% of the moat score

Scale matters only when it converts into economics.

How each Corporate Default defense is measured, in full →

Understanding SCCO's moat

What is Southern Copper Corporation's moat score?

Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO) scores 90 out of 100 on the StatsAlpha Moat Map, which rates its competitive advantage as strong. It ranks #1 of 86 scored companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining, the top 1%. The score is a weighted composite of 6 competitive defenses, each measured against industry peers of 85 companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining. Its strongest defense is Cost Advantage (98/100) and its weakest is Resilience (83/100).

How does Southern Copper Corporation compare with other Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining companies?

Southern Copper Corporation ranks #1 of 86 scored companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining by moat score. That is the widest moat in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining. The companies ranked closest are BHP Group Limited (BHP) at 88 just below it.

How is the moat score calculated?

Each company is scored with an industry-specific template — Corporate Default in this case, chosen because the defenses that matter to a bank are not the ones that matter to a software company. Every defense combines several financial signals, and each signal is measured as a percentile against a peer group of 85 companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining. The defenses are then weighted to produce the overall score out of 100.

Why is Southern Copper Corporation scored with the Corporate Default template?

Most public companies sell a product or a service at a margin, so the moat question is whether that margin survives contact with competitors. The Corporate template scores the six defenses that show up in a general operating company's financial signature: whether it can hold price, produce more cheaply than rivals, keep its customers, earn a return above its cost of capital, withstand a downturn, and turn size into economics.

Which competitive defenses are measured for Southern Copper Corporation?

The Corporate Default template measures 6 defenses, and SCCO scores: Pricing Power (86), Cost Advantage (98), Customer Stickiness (91), Capital Efficiency (93), Resilience (83), Scale & Market Position (90). Each is scored independently as a percentile against peers, so a company can be strong on one and weak on another — the overall score reflects how those defenses are weighted for this industry.

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