📖Charlie Munger

Pricing Power

🌿 Intermediate★★★★★

Pricing power is the most reliable indicator of a durable competitive advantage.

💬

The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power.

— Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting，2011

🏠 Everyday Analogy

Just like Moutai liquor raises its prices every year, yet enthusiasts still queue up to buy it—they may complain, but they won’t switch to other brands. In contrast, if a small roadside eatery raises prices by just half a yuan, customers immediately go next door. A truly great business is one where customers can’t do without you; even if you raise prices, they have no choice but to accept it.

📖 Core Interpretation

Whether a company can raise prices without losing customers is a key indicator of its competitiveness.
💎 Key Insight：A company that can raise prices without losing customers has something competitors cannot replicate: brand loyalty, switching costs, or a product with no substitutes. Munger evaluates pricing power early in his analysis because it predicts everything else: margins, growth, resilience to inflation, and durability. Without pricing power, profits are always at risk from competition.

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❓ Why It Matters

Pricing power is the purest manifestation of a competitive advantage; possessing it signifies the presence of a moat.

🎯 How to Practice

Analyze the company's historical price increase records, customer switching costs, and the threat of substitutes.

🎙️ Master's Voice

I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.
Before forming any view, Munger studies the opposing case thoroughly. He can argue the other side better than its proponents. This discipline prevents overconfidence and reveals blind spots.

⚔️ Practical Guide

✅ Decision Checklist

  • Can I argue the bear case convincingly?
  • Have I sought disconfirming evidence?
  • Do I understand why smart people disagree?

📋 Action Steps

  1. Write the bear case before investing
  2. Find the strongest critic and study their view
  3. Delay decisions until you understand both sides

🚨 Warning Signs

  • Only reading confirming information
  • Dismissing critics without understanding them
  • Certainty without examining alternatives

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

✕Pricing power may be abused.
✕Excessive price increases ultimately harm the brand.

📚 Case Studies

1
Coca-Cola’s Brand and Buffett’s Big Bet (1988)
After Coca-Cola’s global relaunch and New Coke fiasco, Buffett began buying heavily in 1988–1989. Coke’s unmatched brand let it raise concentrate prices a bit above inflation for decades while volumes kept growing worldwide.
✨ Outcome：Buffett’s $1.3B investment became worth over $20B, with rising dividends. The case shows a company with enduring pricing power can compound value even in a mundane industry, validating Buffett’s focus on the ability to raise prices without losing customers.
2
See’s Candies: Small Business, Huge Pricing Power (2011)
Berkshire bought See’s Candies in 1972 for $25M. By 2011, See’s had produced over $1.6B in pre-tax earnings on little incremental capital. Its regional brand loyalty let it regularly raise prices on boxed chocolates with minimal volume loss.
✨ Outcome：See’s proved that strong consumer attachment allows continual price increases, turning modest sales into outsized cash generation. Buffett cited See’s as the prototype of a great business whose primary asset is pricing power, shaping his later investments in brand-driven companies.

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