The ASX shares that we can buy and hold for a long time could be very effective investments to own if they deliver strong financial growth with rising revenue and net profit.
Being able to hold great businesses for a decade means not paying any capital gains tax for the duration of the investment.
Plus, compounding can help the numbers become much larger over time. It's easy to underestimate how much a great business can grow in the long-term.
Let's run through two very compelling ASX shares that I believe would make excellent long-term buys for 10 years.
Xero Ltd (ASX: XRO)
Xero is one of the leading technology companies on the ASX. It provides accounting software for accountants, business owners and other staff, bookkeepers and financial advisors.
It has numerous offerings and tools that help users save time, while the information is presented in a very understandable way. That's exactly what business owners want to have and they're willing to pay for it.
Excluding the impact of removing long idle subscriptions, the business reported a subscriber churn rate of around 1% in FY25, which is exceptionally high and speaks of the stickiness of the subscribers. That's partly why Xero has felt confident to regularly increase its prices for Australian, New Zealand and UK subscribers, boosting overall profitability.
The company is delivering significant growth. In FY25, total subscribers rose 6% to 4.4 million, operating revenue grew 23% to NZ$2.1 billion and free cash flow surged 48% to NZ$506.7 million. With a gross profit margin approaching 90%, this business is definitely one to watch for future profitable growth.
I believe the ASX share will see free cash flow rise significantly in the coming years, particularly if it can capture a sizeable market share in North America. As the chart below shows, the Xero share price is down well over 10% since June 2025, making this a good time to buy, in my view.
Tuas Ltd (ASX: TUA)
Tuas is a Singapore telco business with a focus on mobile services. But, it's about to become much larger once it finalises its acquisition of M1, which is another telco player in the Singaporean market.
The acquisition will give the ASX share a much larger presence in the prepaid mobile, postpaid mobile and broadband markets in Singapore. Plus, it should unlock financial scale benefits, enhanced network scale, capacity and coverage, complementary spectrum, and an improved product portfolio and improved innovation.
In the 12 months to 31 January 2025, a combined Tuas and M1 would have earned S$948.8 million of revenue and S$256 million of operating profit (EBITDA). I think this deal will help significantly increase Tuas' profitability and possibly bring forward its potential expansion in other Asian countries such as Malaysia or Indonesia.
In ten years, I think the ASX share's subscriber base and geographic presence will be significantly bigger.
The Tuas business alone was growing revenue and EBITDA quickly before, so I think a combined business will be a very powerful contender in Singapore and beyond.
