Technology and media (3 of 8)

Internet platforms, marketplaces and digital ads

About 9 minutes to read in full, or 1 minute for the short version belowFacts checked 30 September 2026

In one minute

Apps and websites that connect people, such as buyers and sellers, riders and drivers, or users and advertisers, and keep a cut of what flows between them.

The big idea: A platform does not make most of what it sells; it matches two sides and earns a commission (the take rate) or sells its users' attention to advertisers. The more people on one side, the more useful it is to the other side, so leaders pull ahead. But these network effects are built city by city and country by country, and users often run two apps at once, so growth bought with discounts can vanish.

One unit, in numbers: One active food delivery customer in an Indian city for one year: INR 3,120 comes in, and INR 684 (22%) is left after its own costs.What is left is the unit's contribution, before the costs of the whole company. See the worked example
Typical margin: 10 to 40 percent for scaled leaders; many younger platforms lose moneyRoughly how much of every 100 of sales (or income) is left as profit after the running costs. More on margin
Capital intensity: MediumA fair amount of money is tied up, in things like stores, stock or equipment. More on capital intensity
The number to watch: Monthly and daily active users (MAU and DAU)People who used the service at least once in the month or day. DAU divided by MAU shows how much of a habit the app is.

Ask this first in a case

Which sides does the platform connect, and who pays: buyers, sellers or advertisers?

Words used above (3)

Take rate:: The share of GMV the platform keeps as revenue.
Network effects:: A product gets more valuable as more people use it.
MAU and DAU:: Monthly and daily active users.

The industry's other words are explained in Words to know (12).

On this page (17 sections)

How money is made

A take rate: a commission on each sale, ride, meal or stay, charged to the seller, the buyer or both.
Advertising sold per 1,000 views (CPM) or per click (CPC), including ads that sellers buy inside a marketplace (retail media).
Delivery, service and platform fees paid by users on each order.
Subscriptions for users, such as free delivery memberships, and for sellers, such as premium listings.
Financial services inside the app: payments, buy now pay later, loans and insurance, common in super-apps.

Worked example: one unit

Unit economics means the money in and out for one unit of the business. Start from the revenue, take away the unit's own costs, and what is left is its contribution. More on unit economics

The unit: One active food delivery customer in an Indian city for one year (24 orders of about INR 450). Illustrative, rounded figures.
Line	Amount	ShareShare of revenue
Platform revenue: 24 orders x INR 130 (restaurant commission INR 90, customer fees INR 30, restaurant ads INR 10)	INR 3,120	100%
Minus Delivery rider pay: 24 orders x INR 55	INR 1,320	42%
Minus Discounts and incentives: 24 orders x INR 20	INR 480	15%
Minus Payment processing: about 2 percent of each order	INR 216	6.9%
Minus Customer support and refunds	INR 120	3.8%
Minus Marketing to keep the customer ordering	INR 300	9.6%
What is left (contribution)	INR 684	22%

Check: INR 3,120 minus INR 2,436 of costs leaves INR 684.

So what: The platform handles INR 10,800 of food but keeps only INR 3,120 as revenue, and nearly two thirds of that goes straight out again as rider pay, discounts and payment fees. The lever that moves it most is order frequency: each extra order adds about INR 41 after its own costs, while marketing stays fixed, so a customer who orders 36 times a year is worth far more. Cutting discounts is the second lever, if rivals do not use them to lure the customer away.

Key measures(9)

Key measures (also called KPIs, key performance indicators) are the numbers people in this industry track. Ask for the first one or two early in a case.

Monthly and daily active users (MAU and DAU)
People who used the service at least once in the month or day. DAU divided by MAU shows how much of a habit the app is.
Typical: the largest social group reached 3.58 billion daily active people in December 2025[1]
ARPU (average revenue per user)
Revenue divided by average users in the period. It varies hugely by country because ad prices and spending power differ. Glossary: ARPU (average revenue per user)
Typical: about USD 57 per daily active person for the whole of 2025 at the largest social platform, up 15 percent on 2024[1]
GMV (gross merchandise value) or gross bookings
The total value of goods or services sold through the platform. It is not revenue. Glossary: GMV (gross merchandise value) or gross bookings
Typical: Uber handled about USD 193 billion of gross bookings in 2025 and Airbnb about USD 91 billion[2]
Take rate
Platform revenue divided by GMV: the share of each sale the platform keeps. Glossary: Take rate
Typical: about 13 percent for Airbnb stays, about 19 percent for Uber delivery and about 30 percent for Uber rides in 2025 (our calculation: revenue divided by gross bookings in company filings)[2]
Order frequency
How often each user buys in a period. Frequency spreads the cost of winning a user over more orders.
Incentives as a share of GMV
Discounts and bonuses paid to users and suppliers, divided by GMV. Rising incentives can fake growth.
Contribution per order
Revenue per order minus the costs that come with that order, such as delivery, incentives and payments.
CPM and CPC
The price advertisers pay per 1,000 ad views, or per click. Ad revenue is impressions times price.
Typical: the largest social platform raised its average price per ad by 9 percent and ad impressions by 12 percent in 2025[1]
ROAS (return on ad spend)
Sales an advertiser gets for each unit of money spent on ads. Advertisers keep buying only if ROAS beats their margin. Glossary: ROAS (return on ad spend)

First questions to ask

When a case lands in this industry, these questions get you to the numbers that matter.

Which sides does the platform connect, and who pays: buyers, sellers or advertisers?
How does revenue break down: GMV times take rate, plus fees, ads and subscriptions?
What is contribution per order after delivery, incentives and payment costs, by city?
How strong are network effects here: do users and suppliers also use rival apps?
For ad revenue: did impressions (users times time times ad load) or price (CPM) move?

Value chain: where the margin sits

The value chain is the steps a product or service passes through, from the first supplier to the customer. Each step below shows how much of the value it keeps. More on value chains

Step 1: Phones, operating systems and app stores (the way users arrive)
Fat margin
Apple (App Store) and Google (Android, Play Store)
App store commissions and default search deals make this a toll gate, now limited in the EU by the Digital Markets Act.
Step 2: Supply side: sellers, restaurants, drivers, hosts and creators
Thin margin
Millions of small businesses and individuals
They carry most of the real-world cost and pay the platform its commission.
Step 3: The platform: search, matching, ranking, trust and reviews
Fat margin
Amazon, Flipkart, Shopee, Uber, Grab, Airbnb, Google, Meta
Where network effects and data sit, once the platform leads its market.
Step 4: Advertising technology and measurement
Medium margin
Google's ad tools, Meta's ad system, Amazon Ads, The Trade Desk, retail media networks
Auctions set ad prices; regulators in the US and EU are examining this layer.
Step 5: Payments and financial services
Medium margin
Card networks, wallets and super-app fintech arms such as GrabPay, Paytm and Alipay
See the payments and fintech brief.
Step 6: Delivery and logistics (for goods and food)
Thin margin
Riders, couriers, warehouses and dark stores (small warehouses that serve only online orders), run by the platform or partners
The costliest step for delivery platforms, paid per order.

Profit pool: who keeps the money

Where in the value chain the profit ends up, which is often not where most of the sales are. More on profit pools

Profit collects at the platform that owns the customer relationship and the data, above all where advertising runs on top of heavy daily use. Delivery and the supply side (drivers, restaurants, small sellers) earn thin margins. App stores and search sit at the very front and take a toll from everyone else.

Cost structure(6)

The main costs, each as a share of revenue (the money from sales).

Cost of revenue (data centres, payment processing, insurance, content, delivery where the platform pays for it): about 15 to 60 percent: Meta 18, Airbnb 17, Uber about 60 percent in 2025[2]
Research and development (engineers, product, AI): about 7 to 30 percent: Uber 7, Airbnb 19, Meta 29 percent[1]
Sales and marketing (user acquisition, brand, advertiser sales): about 6 to 21 percent: Meta 6, Uber 9, Airbnb 21 percent[3]
Operations, support and trust and safety: about 5 to 11 percent where reported separately: Uber 5, Airbnb 11 percent[3]
General and administrative (legal, regulatory, finance): about 6 to 11 percent: Meta 6, Uber 6, Airbnb 11 percent[3]
Operating profit left over: about 10 to 41 percent for scaled leaders: Uber 11, Airbnb 21, Meta 41 percent[1]

Benchmarks(7)

Typical figures for the industry, to check a client's numbers against.

Global advertising spend: about USD 1.16 trillion projected for 2025, up about 6 percent[5]
Share of ad spend outside China taken by Alphabet, Amazon and Meta: nearly 55 percent in 2025, about 56 percent expected in 2026[5]WARC projections reported in June 2025.
Retail media (ads sold by retailers and marketplaces): about USD 200 billion forecast for 2026, about 15 percent of all advertising in 2027[6]Amazon held about 78 percent of US retail media spending in 2025.
Operating margin, advertising-funded social platform: about 41 percent (Meta, 2025)[1]
Operating margin, travel marketplace: about 21 percent (Airbnb, 2025)[3]
Operating margin, rides and delivery platform: about 11 percent (Uber, 2025)[2]
Capital spending plan, largest social platform: USD 115 to 135 billion for 2026, mostly for AI[1]Platforms that were asset-light are becoming capital-heavy because of AI data centres.

Typical cases(7)

Case prompts you might hear in this industry.

Our food delivery marketplace grows GMV but loses money. How do we reach profit?
Should we raise our commission to restaurants from 20 to 25 percent?
Our advertising revenue fell 10 percent while users grew. Why?
Should we launch our ride-hailing app in a new city, and how do we reach enough drivers?
Should our super-app in Southeast Asia add lending or insurance?
A rival is paying big discounts to our riders and drivers. How should we respond?
Should a retailer launch its own advertising business (retail media)?

Common traps(5)

Mistakes candidates make in this industry, and what to do instead.

Treating GMV as revenue. Revenue is only the platform's cut.
Praising growth without checking incentives. Ask for incentives as a share of GMV and contribution per order.
Assuming network effects are global. They are usually local, and multi-homing weakens them.
Looking at one side of the market only. A higher commission can push sellers away and shrink GMV.
In ad cases, forgetting to split the change into volume (impressions) and price (CPM or CPC).

What changed, 2024 to 2026(5)

Recent changes a case could turn on.

The EU Digital Markets Act now binds seven gatekeepers (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Booking, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft) across 23 core services, and the first fines came in April 2025: EUR 500 million for Apple and EUR 200 million for Meta. Cases on app store fees and data use often turn on these rules.[8]
Regulators are going after ad technology on both sides of the Atlantic. The European Commission fined Google EUR 2.95 billion in September 2025 for favouring its own ad exchange (the marketplace where ad space is auctioned). In the US, a court ruled in September 2026 that Google need not sell its ad exchange, but must change how its ad tools work for six years. Appeals are possible.[9]
Retail media is the fastest-growing ad channel: ads sold by retailers and marketplaces on their own sites are forecast to pass USD 200 billion in 2026, though growth outside Amazon is forecast to slow to about 10 percent a year by 2027.[6]
Super-apps reached profit. Grab reported its first full year of net profit in 2025, with revenue up 20 percent to about USD 3.37 billion.[4]
AI is turning platforms into heavy spenders: the largest social platform plans USD 115 to 135 billion of capital spending in 2026. AI answers inside search and chat assistants may also change how many ad slots exist and how often users click through to other sites; the impact is still unclear.[1]

Players by region(8)

Well-known companies in each region. You do not need to learn them by heart; they help you picture the market.

Global: Alphabet (Google, YouTube)
Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp)
Amazon
ByteDance (TikTok)
Uber
Airbnb
Booking Holdings
United States: DoorDash (delivery)
eBay and Etsy (marketplaces)
Netflix (subscription video)
Europe: Zalando (Germany, fashion)
Delivery Hero (Germany, food delivery)
Allegro (Poland, marketplace)
Spotify (Sweden, audio)
Middle East: Careem (UAE, rides and super-app)
Noon (UAE and Saudi Arabia, e-commerce)
Talabat (food and grocery delivery, listed in Dubai)
India: Flipkart (owned by Walmart)
Eternal (Zomato and Blinkit)
Swiggy
Meesho
Paytm
Southeast Asia: Grab (Singapore)
Sea (Shopee)
GoTo (Gojek) and Tokopedia (majority owned by TikTok since 2024)
China: Tencent (WeChat)
Alibaba (Taobao, Tmall)
Meituan (delivery)
PDD (Pinduoduo, Temu)
Latin America: Mercado Libre
iFood (Brazil)
Rappi (Colombia)

Words to know(12)

Linked words have a fuller entry in the glossary.

GMV (glossary entry): Gross merchandise value: the total value of what is sold through the platform.
Take rate (glossary entry): The share of GMV the platform keeps as revenue.
Network effects (glossary entry): A product gets more valuable as more people use it.
Multi-homing (glossary entry): Users or suppliers using several rival platforms at the same time.
Liquidity: Having enough buyers and sellers that matches happen fast, such as short waits for a ride.
MAU and DAU: Monthly and daily active users.
ARPU (glossary entry): Average revenue per user in a period.
CPM and CPC: Ad price per 1,000 views, and per click.
ROAS (glossary entry): Return on ad spend: sales earned per unit of money spent on ads.
Retail media: Ads sold by retailers and marketplaces on their own sites and apps.
Super-app (glossary entry): One app offering many services, such as rides, food, payments and loans.
Gatekeeper: Under the EU Digital Markets Act, a very large platform with extra duties.

Business model patterns

The ways of making money this industry follows. Spot the pattern in a new industry and you already know the first questions to ask.

Sources(10)

Facts checked on 30 September 2026. Worked examples are illustrative, shaped by these sources rather than one company's figures.

Go deeper and practise

Go deeper

The full lessons behind this brief, with sources and worked cases.

Practise it

Same pattern elsewhere

Industries that make money in a similar way. What you learned here carries over.