4 Soaring Stocks to Hold for the Next 20 Years

Key Points

• Blue-chip consumer businesses can generate decades of steady growth for investors.

• Tech industry leaders Amazon and Apple have more AI-driven upside ahead.

• Investors have had some doubts about Uber and Philip Morris, but both should thrive.

• 10 stocks we like better than Amazon ›

The United States is the world's largest economy. At its heart, you'll find consumers. The money that everyday people spend on products and services represents roughly two-thirds of the country's economic output.

That's why many of the world's largest companies, and the market's best-performing stocks, are consumer-facing businesses.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

Here are four remarkable companies that represent powerful brands, control impressive shares of their respective markets, and have long runways for growth that make them enticing stocks to buy and hold.

All four stocks have soared in the past, but remain positioned to deliver outsized gains over the next 20 years.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

1. Amazon

The leading e-commerce company in the United States, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), is an all-time great in the wealth-building department. It has become a multitrillion-dollar juggernaut since its IPO less than 30 years ago, and despite its size, continues to experiment and expand. Most consumers know Amazon for its online shopping marketplace, where it controls an estimated 37.6% of the e-commerce market in America. However, Amazon's empire now includes cloud computing, media, advertising, and more.

Amazon's e-commerce success to date has mostly been driven by discretionary purchases; it just recently began rolling out a massive expansion of its grocery services, enabling shoppers to order food products, including perishable goods, for same-day delivery across 1,000 U.S. towns and cities. It could expand that service to 2,300 municipalities by the end of the year. E-commerce still represents less than 17% of total retail spending in the U.S., so it still has plenty of room for growth, and that's without factoring in artificial intelligence's potential impact, which could drive cloud growth and cut costs elsewhere in the company.

2. Apple

The iPhone made Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) one of the world's largest companies, and laid the groundwork for a sticky ecosystem that spans phones, computers, tablets, services, and accessories. Apple's brand is known worldwide, with over 2.35 billion active devices globally. Apple's prowess in consumer devices led many to expect it would be able to easily capitalize on the AI trend, but it arguably stumbled coming out of the gate in its efforts to exploit that opportunity.

Nonetheless, Apple's sticky ecosystem will likely buy it time to get things right, and assuming Apple does when it revamps its Siri technology for a release next year, the company could quickly improve its standing in the AI landscape. Apple could lean further into its pricing power than it has in the past, a potentially powerful growth lever it could pull that, along with massive share repurchases, could help the company continue to churn out steady growth, dividends, and investment returns for years to come.

3. Uber Technologies

Ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) currently faces some questions about its long-term future as competitors with autonomous vehicles like Tesla's Robotaxi and Alphabet's Waymo begin to expand to new markets. But the doubters may be getting ahead of themselves. Uber drivers engaged in 18% more trips in the second quarter of 2025 than they did in the prior-year period, across a diverse offering of ride-hailing, delivery, and transportation services. It is approaching $200 billion in annualized bookings -- a scale that none of its rivals currently approaches.

Additionally, its subscription program, Uber One, has rapidly grown to 36 million members. Uber has the size and resources to plan countermeasures to the threat posed by rival services built around self-driving vehicles; those competitors won't grow large enough to threaten Uber overnight. The company is already partnering to develop its own autonomous vehicle options, too. Uber's brand name and the network effects it enjoys due to its extensive U.S. footprint won't fade easily, and make the stock a likely winner moving forward.

4. Philip Morris International

Investors have long considered tobacco companies to be dinosaurs on the verge of extinction, but Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) has shown the industry is making a comeback. While the use of traditional cigarettes has been steadily falling, the industry has evolved, shifting to smokeless nicotine products, like electronic cigarettes (vapes), heat-not-burn tobacco devices, and oral pouches filled with nicotine powder. Philip Morris was an early mover in heat-not-burn devices, and it acquired the maker of Zyn, the leading nicotine pouch brand, in early 2023.

The addictive nature of nicotine has provided tobacco companies with immense pricing power, which has allowed them to offset declining cigarette sales volumes over the years by repeatedly raising their prices. Now, the surging popularity of next-generation nicotine products has reignited Philip Morris' growth. The company's revenue grew by 7.1% in the second quarter of 2025, driven by 15.2% growth in smoke-free products. That smoke-free momentum should continue well into the future, cementing solid total returns and supporting a dividend that yields 3.2% at the current share price. Moreover, management has raised its payout every year since it was spun off from Altria in 2008, and will likely keep that streak going.

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Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends Philip Morris International. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.