Samsara (NYSE:IOT) and Gen Digital (NASDAQ:GEN) Critical Review

Gen Digital (NASDAQ:GEN) and Samsara (NYSE:IOT) are both large-cap technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability and dividends.

Risk and Volatility

Gen Digital has a beta of 1.24, suggesting that its share price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Samsara has a beta of 1.33, suggesting that its share price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Gen Digital and Samsara, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gen Digital	0	6	1	1	2.38
Samsara	0	6	14	2	2.82

Gen Digital currently has a consensus price target of $30.25, indicating a potential upside of 1.54%. Samsara has a consensus price target of $51.68, indicating a potential upside of 26.00%. Given Samsara’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Samsara is more favorable than Gen Digital.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Gen Digital and Samsara”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gen Digital	$5.00 billion	3.53	$973.00 million	$1.99	14.97
Samsara	$1.62 billion	14.84	-$9.12 million	$0.16	256.36

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

Profitability

This table compares Gen Digital and Samsara’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Gen Digital	23.07%	56.80%	9.38%
Samsara	4.90%	4.13%	2.35%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

81.4% of Gen Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.0% of Samsara shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.7% of Gen Digital shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 35.1% of Samsara shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Samsara beats Gen Digital on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Gen Digital

Gen Digital Inc. engages in the provision of cyber safety solutions for consumers in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. The company offers security and performance products under Norton, Avast, Avira, AVG, and CCleaner brands that provide real-time protection and maintenance for PCs, Macs, and mobile devices against malware, viruses, adware, and other online threats. It also provides identity protection solutions, including LifeLock Identity Theft Protection, Avast and AVG Secure Identity, Norton Identity Theft Protection, and Dark Web Monitoring for monitoring of credit reports, financial accounts, the dark web, and social media accounts to help safeguard customers’ personal information. In addition, the company offers Virtual Private Network (VPN) solutions under Norton, Avast and AVG brands to enhance security and online privacy that allows customers to securely transmit and access private information, such as passwords, bank details, and credit card numbers, when using public Wi-Fi on PCs, Macs, and mobile iOS and Android devices; AntiTrack and Secure Browser products which helps to keep personal information and browsing activity anonymous while browsing online; and Privacy Monitor Assistant and BreachGuard products for removing customers’ data from public data broker sites; and ReputationDefender, a white glove service that helps customers manage all aspects of their personal branding online, including search results, social media sites, and overall web presence. It markets and sells its products and related services through retailers, telecom service providers, hardware original equipment manufacturers, and employee benefit providers, as well as e-commerce platform. The company was formerly known as NortonLifeLock Inc. and changed its name to Gen Digital Inc. in November 2022. Gen Digital Inc. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.

About Samsara

Samsara Inc. provides solutions that connects physical operations data to its connected operations cloud in the United States and internationally. The company's Connected Operations Cloud includes Data Platform, which ingests, aggregates, and enriches data from its IoT devices and has embedded capabilities for AI, workflows and analytics, alerts, API connections, and data security and privacy. Its applications include video-based safety that enables customers to build a safety program and protect their teams with AI-enabled video; vehicle telematics which provides visibility into real-time vehicle location and diagnostics with GPS tracking, routing and dispatch, fuel efficiency management, electric vehicle usage and charge planning, preventative maintenance, and insights to manage fuel and energy costs; and mobile apps and workflows that improves productivity for frontline workers and enables regulatory compliance for workers to see upcoming jobs, capture electronic documents, perform maintenance inspections, maintain compliance logs, and message with back-office administration. The company also provides equipment monitoring which offers visibility and management of unpowered and powered assets, ranging from generators and compressors to heavy construction equipment and trailers to improve operating efficiency, prevent unplanned downtime, and avoid critical safety and compliance issues; and site visibility that provides remote visibility into sites to improve onsite security, safety, and incident response times. It serves transportation, wholesale and retail trade, construction, field services, logistics, utilities and energy, healthcare and education, manufacturing, food and beverage, and other industries, as well as government. Samsara Inc. was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.