Comparing BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) & Agora (NASDAQ:API)

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) and Agora (NASDAQ:API) are both technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for BlackBerry and Agora, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BlackBerry	0	7	2	0	2.22
Agora	0	2	1	0	2.33

BlackBerry presently has a consensus target price of $9.86, suggesting a potential upside of 12.33%. Agora has a consensus target price of $6.80, suggesting a potential upside of 63.86%. Given Agora’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Agora is more favorable than BlackBerry.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares BlackBerry and Agora”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BlackBerry	$549.10 million	9.38	$53.20 million	$0.12	73.12
Agora	$141.06 million	2.57	$9.53 million	$0.11	37.73

BlackBerry has higher revenue and earnings than Agora. Agora is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BlackBerry, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

BlackBerry has a beta of 2.2, indicating that its share price is 120% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Agora has a beta of 0.75, indicating that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares BlackBerry and Agora’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BlackBerry	13.09%	13.71%	8.36%
Agora	7.23%	1.96%	1.52%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

54.5% of BlackBerry shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.4% of Agora shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.5% of BlackBerry shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

BlackBerry beats Agora on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BlackBerry

BlackBerry Limited provides intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Cybersecurity, IoT, and Licensing and Other. The company offers CylanceENDPOINT, an integrated endpoint security solution; CylanceGUARD, a managed detection and response solution; CylanceEDGE, an AI-powered continuous authentication zero trust network access solution; CylanceINTELLIGENCE, a contextual cyber threat intelligence service; BlackBerry Dynamics offers a development platform and secure container for mobile applications; BlackBerry Workspaces a secure Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS) solution; BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) Enterprise, an enterprise-grade secure instant messaging solution for messaging, voice and video; BlackBerry SecuSUITE is a certified, multi-OS voice and text messaging solution; BlackBerry AtHoc, a secure networked critical event management solution; and BlackBerry unified endpoint management (UEM) solutions. It also provides BlackBerry Technology Solutions (BTS); BlackBerry Certicom, a patented elliptic curve cryptography, which provides device security, anti-counterfeiting and product authentication solutions; BlackBerry Radar offers monitoring and telematics solutions; BlackBerry Professional; and cyber security consulting services. In addition, the company is involved in the patent licensing and legacy service access fees business. The company was formerly known as Research In Motion Limited and changed its name to BlackBerry Limited in July 2013. BlackBerry Limited was incorporated in 1984 and is headquartered in Waterloo, Canada.

About Agora

Agora, Inc. operates in real-time engagement technology business in the People's Republic of China, the United States, and internationally. The company offers real-time engagement platform-as-a-services providing developers with application programming interfaces to embed real-time voice, video, interactive live-streaming, chat, whiteboard, and artificial intelligence capabilities into their applications. It also provides video and voice calling, interactive live and broadcast streaming, chat, signaling, and interactive whiteboard products; and extensions, such as analytics, recording, AI noise suppression, 3D spatial audio, real-time transcription, and extensions marketplace. In addition, the company offers Application Platforms, including Flexible Classroom, a low-code application Platform as a Service, which combines video, voice, chat, signaling, whiteboard and recording functionalities into an integrated cloud-based solution for education providers; and App Builder, a no-code application platform, designed for developers with little or no coding experience to build their own applications with video conference and live streaming functionalities. It operates through Agora and Shengwang brands. Agora, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.