Because adding more capacity to Visa's payments network is cheap, its costs have grown far more slowly than revenues in the past decade.
Visa can thus get away with charging more for its services-sometimes considerably more-than its marginal cost of providing them.
The windfall profits are funnelled to Visa's shareholders, whose returns (including dividends) have averaged 24 % a year since 2008.
Investors, who value the firm at nearly 30 times its most recent annual earnings, against less than ten times for fellow finance firms in the S&P 500 index, clearly believe no competitor will challenge its dominance anytime soon.
这是《经济学人》2020年3月刊的一篇文章'Processing power'第5段，共4句。
1、
{'capacity':'n.容量、容积'}
因为Visa支付网络扩容很便宜，所以在过去十年里，成本上的花费的增速远比利润低。
2、
因此，Visa可以免去对其服务收取更多的费用，有时远远超过其提供服务的边际成本。
3、
{'windfall':'意外获得之财'}
{'funnelled':'传递'}
这些意外之财被输送到维萨的股东手中，他们的回报率（包括股息）自2008年以来平均每年24%。
4、
投资者对该公司的估值接近其最近年度收益的30倍，而标准普尔500指数（S&P 500）中的其他金融公司的估值不到10倍，他们显然认为，短期内不会有竞争对手挑战其主导地位。
--总结--
【词汇部分】
{'capacity':'n.容量、容积'}
{'windfall':'意外获得之财'}
{'funnelled':'传递'}
閱讀更多 業餘經濟學人 的文章
