LOW vs SCHW Comparison

Lowe's is the second-largest home improvement retailer globally, with around 1,750 stores in the US, after the 2023 divestiture of its Canadian locations (RONA, Lowe's Canada, Réno-Dépôt, and Dick's Lumber). The firm's stores offer products and services for home decorating, maintenance, repair, and remodeling, with maintenance and repair accounting for two-thirds of products sold. Lowe's primarily targets retail do-it-yourself (around 70% of sales) and do-it-for-me customers, but has expanded its professional business clients to 30% from less than 20% in the past six years (set ot expand further with the acquisition of FBM). We estimate Lowe's captures a high-single-digit share of the domestic home improvement market, based on US Census data and management's market size estimates.

Charles Schwab is one of the largest retail-oriented financial services companies in the US, with $10.1 trillion in client assets across its brokerage, banking, asset-management, custody, financial advisory, and wealth-management businesses at year-end 2024. While best known for its retail brokerage offering, Schwab generates the lion's share of its revenue and profits through its Charles Schwab Bank and asset-management segments. The firm is a dominant player in registered investment advisor custody, with over 40% market share, and has recently pushed into wealth management with robo-advisory, direct indexing, and other managed-investment solutions.