Comparing ServiceNow (NOW) and Its Rivals

ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) is one of 953 public companies in the “Software” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare ServiceNow to related companies based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, profitability and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for ServiceNow and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ServiceNow	3	3	36	1	2.81
ServiceNow Competitors	5750	21539	44908	1497	2.57

ServiceNow currently has a consensus target price of $154.50, suggesting a potential upside of 50.20%. As a group, “Software” companies have a potential upside of 28.94%. Given ServiceNow’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe ServiceNow is more favorable than its competitors.

Volatility & Risk

ServiceNow has a beta of 1, meaning that its stock price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.Comparatively, ServiceNow’s competitors have a beta of 1.34, meaning that their average stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares ServiceNow and its competitors revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
ServiceNow	$15.43 billion	$1.75 billion	74.00
ServiceNow Competitors	$1.93 billion	$386.97 million	109.20

ServiceNow has higher revenue and earnings than its competitors. ServiceNow is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares ServiceNow and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ServiceNow	9.36%	15.17%	6.70%
ServiceNow Competitors	-607.02%	22.93%	-8.85%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

87.2% of ServiceNow shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 41.9% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of ServiceNow shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 20.0% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

ServiceNow beats its competitors on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

ServiceNow Company Profile

ServiceNow, Inc. provides end to-end intelligent workflow automation platform solutions for digital businesses in the North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates the Now platform for end-to-end digital transformation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, process mining, performance analytics, and collaboration and development tools. It also provides asset management, cloud observability, integrated risk management; information technology (IT) service management applications; IT service management product suite for enterprise's employees, customers, and partners; strategic portfolio management product suite; IT operations management product that connects a customer's physical and cloud-based IT infrastructure; IT asset management; and security operations that connects with internal and third party. In addition, the company offers integrated risk management product to manage risk and resilience; environmental, social and governance management product; human resources, legal, and workplace service delivery products; customer service management product; and field service management applications. Further, the company provides app engine product; automation engine; platform privacy and security product; and source-to-pay operations. It serves to government, financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, IT services, technology, oil and gas, education, and consumer products through service providers and resale partners. The company was formerly known as Service-now.com and changed its name to ServiceNow, Inc. in May 2012. ServiceNow, Inc. was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.