Moat
80.0/10
Large customer base, high Fortune 1000 penetration, high retention, secure facilities, chain-of-custody procedures, compliance reporting, and certifications create a strong trust-and-infrastructure moat.
IRMQueued from the May 25, 2026 S&P 500 market-cap snapshot ranks 251-275; financial and market data refreshed June 27, 2026.
Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain provides records storage, information management, secure destruction, data center, and digital asset lifecycle services.
Metadata
Where this company sits
- Ticker
- IRM
- Rank snapshot
- ≈ 263
- Sector
- Industrials
- Industry
- Commercial Services & Supplies
- Region
- United States
- Index
- S&P 500 · Top 275 by market cap
Metrics
Scoring view
Every metric is paired with a short rationale. The numbers are deliberate, not divine.
Decentralizability
46.0/10
Records software, routing, audit logs, and local custody networks can decentralize, but regulated customers still need reliable facilities, trained staff, chain of custody, and liability-bearing service providers.
Profitability
66.0/10
CompaniesMarketCap reported 2025 revenue of about $6.90 billion and 2025 pretax earnings of about $1.05 billion; profitability is meaningful, though the very high P/E ratio indicates GAAP earnings are thin relative to market value.
Price / Earnings
146.2x
CompaniesMarketCap reported a trailing P/E ratio of 146.22 for Iron Mountain as of June 2026.
Market cap
$39.0B
CompaniesMarketCap reported Iron Mountain market capitalization of approximately $38.99 billion on June 25, 2026.
Freed-up capital potential
$0.0
Derived from market cap, moat resistance, decentralizability, and profitability. It is a directional estimate of value capture that could come under pressure if open alternatives compound.
Narrative
Why the company matters
A short editorial overview plus the current thesis on moat strength and decentralization pressure.
Business footprint
Iron Mountain serves more than 240,000 customers across 61 countries, including approximately 95% of the Fortune 1000, with services spanning physical records, digital information management, information security, data centers, and asset lifecycle management.
The company reported 2025 revenue of about $6.9 billion and positions its business around protecting, connecting, and activating customer information across physical and digital workflows.
Physical and digital services
The records business depends on secure offsite storage, chain-of-custody procedures, trained personnel, inventory visibility, retention workflows, and retrieval or digitization services.
Iron Mountain also operates data center and IT asset lifecycle management offerings, including colocation infrastructure and ITAD services, which broaden the company beyond legacy box storage while preserving a trust-and-compliance moat.
Moat reading
Iron Mountain's moat is built on custody trust, facility footprint, customer retention, compliance workflows, inventory metadata, trained personnel, and the inconvenience of moving large records programs once they are embedded. Its investor materials cite about 240,000 customers, roughly 95% Fortune 1000 penetration, and about 98% retention.
The moat is strongest where customers need defensible handling of regulated or sensitive information. Secure storage facilities, auditable chain-of-custody procedures, online inventory portals, NAID AAA-certified destruction, and global service coverage are hard for a small entrant to copy all at once.
Decentralization reading
Iron Mountain is not easy to decentralize as a whole because customers buy assurance, liability transfer, secure facilities, chain-of-custody discipline, and compliance reporting, not just warehouse space or shredding capacity.
The plausible pressure is modular: open document-management systems can reduce dependence on proprietary records portals, local operators can coordinate storage or shredding with open routing and inventory tools, and Bitcoin-anchored proof systems can make custody or destruction attestations more portable. These mechanisms pressure the software and audit layers before they threaten the entire physical network.
Products
Where the moat actually touches users
These pages zoom into the products and services that matter most to each company, the alternatives already nibbling at them, and 2 structured disruption concepts across the current product set.
2 disruption concepts tracked0 documented exceptions
Records and Document Storage
Records storage and information management
1 conceptSecure offsite document storage, inventory visibility, retrieval, chain-of-custody procedures, and related records-management services.
Secure Shredding
Secure destruction and compliance services
1 conceptOnsite, offsite, bulk, recurring, and residential shredding services for paper records and related confidential materials, with compliance reporting and destruction certificates.
Technology waves
Strategic lenses
These are the repo's explicit bias terms: the technologies expected to keep making incumbents less inevitable over time.
Bitcoin and Lightning as coordination rails
Proof-of-work economics, programmable payment flows, and anti-spam pricing make more digital systems capable of rewarding signal while resisting abuse.
- • Platforms that monetize gatekeeping could face pressure from protocol-native payment and reputation layers.
- • Micropayments can replace some ad-funded or subscription-heavy distribution models.
- • Open systems with credible anti-spam economics deserve a higher decentralizability score than legacy software assumptions suggest.
Paper trail
Visible evidence trail
These sources shaped the scoring and writing. The site is opinionated, but it should not behave like it is improvising facts in a dark room.
Iron Mountain Investor Relations Overview
Iron Mountain Incorporated · investor relations
Corporate overview, customer footprint, Fortune 1000 penetration, retention, 2025 revenue, and market-position context.
Reviewed 2026-06-27
Iron Mountain United States Homepage
Iron Mountain Incorporated · product page
High-level service taxonomy covering records management, data centers, digital platforms, and IT asset lifecycle management.
Reviewed 2026-06-27
Records and Document Storage
Iron Mountain Incorporated · product page
Product page documenting offsite records storage, facility controls, inventory visibility, chain of custody, and online records management.
Reviewed 2026-06-27
Secure Shredding
Iron Mountain Incorporated · product page
Product page documenting onsite, offsite, recurring, bulk, and residential shredding, compliance reports, NAID AAA certification, recycling, and certificates of destruction.
Reviewed 2026-06-27
Iron Mountain Market Capitalization
CompaniesMarketCap · market data
Market capitalization and ranking snapshot used for marketCap and valuation context.
Reviewed 2026-06-27
Iron Mountain P/E Ratio
CompaniesMarketCap · market data
Trailing P/E ratio used for the peRatio input metric.
Reviewed 2026-06-27
Iron Mountain Revenue
CompaniesMarketCap · market data
Revenue history and 2025 revenue reference used for profitability context.
Reviewed 2026-06-27
Iron Mountain Earnings
CompaniesMarketCap · market data
Pretax earnings history used as a profitability reference alongside revenue and P/E data.
Reviewed 2026-06-27