Financial Survey: Vuzix (NASDAQ:VUZI) and Zebra Technologies (NASDAQ:ZBRA)

Vuzix (NASDAQ:VUZI) and Zebra Technologies (NASDAQ:ZBRA) are both technology companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

35.9% of Vuzix shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.0% of Zebra Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 7.3% of Vuzix shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of Zebra Technologies shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Vuzix and Zebra Technologies”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Vuzix	$6.28 million	28.76	-$32.27 million	($0.39)	-5.49
Zebra Technologies	$5.40 billion	2.88	$419.00 million	$12.39	26.37

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Vuzix and Zebra Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Vuzix	1	0	0	0	1.00
Zebra Technologies	0	5	10	0	2.67

Zebra Technologies has a consensus target price of $388.67, suggesting a potential upside of 18.96%. Given Zebra Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Zebra Technologies is more favorable than Vuzix.

Volatility & Risk

Vuzix has a beta of 1.83, suggesting that its stock price is 83% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Zebra Technologies has a beta of 1.61, suggesting that its stock price is 61% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Vuzix and Zebra Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Vuzix	-519.11%	-125.60%	-78.58%
Zebra Technologies	9.80%	23.94%	9.82%

Summary

Zebra Technologies beats Vuzix on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Vuzix

Vuzix Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets smart glasses and augmented reality (AR) technologies and products for the enterprise, medical, defense, and consumer markets. The company’s products include head-mounted smart personal display and wearable computing devices that offer users a portable viewing experience, provide solutions for mobility, wearable displays, and augmented reality, as well as original equipment manufacturer waveguide optical components and display engines. It also provides certified ERP SaaS logistics solution to support hand-held mobile phones and scanners used in logistics, warehousing, and manufacturing applications. It holds approximately 375 patents and patents pending and various IP licenses in the fields of optics, head-mounted displays, and augmented reality Video Eyewear field. It sells its products through resellers, distributors, direct to commercial customers, and online stores, as well as various Vuzix operated web stores in North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company was formerly known as Icuiti Corporation and changed its name to Vuzix Corporation in September 2007. Vuzix Corporation was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in West Henrietta, New York.

About Zebra Technologies

Zebra Technologies Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides enterprise asset intelligence solutions in the automatic identification and data capture solutions industry worldwide. It operates in two segments, Asset Intelligence & Tracking, and Enterprise Visibility & Mobility. The company designs, manufactures, and sells printers that produce labels, wristbands, tickets, receipts, and plastic cards; dye-sublimination thermal card printers that produce images, which are used for personal identification, access control, and financial transactions; radio frequency identification device (RFID) printers that encode data into passive RFID transponders; accessories and options for printers, including carrying cases, vehicle mounts, and battery chargers; stock and customized thermal labels, receipts, ribbons, plastic cards, and RFID tags for printers; and temperature-monitoring labels primarily used in vaccine distribution. It also provides various maintenance, technical support, repair, and managed and professional services; fixed readers, RFID enabled mobile computers, and RFID sleds; tags, sensors, exciters, middleware software, and application software; and physical inventory management solutions, and rugged and enterprise-grade mobile computing products and accessories, as well as real-time location systems and services. In addition, the company offers barcode scanners and imagers, RFID readers, industrial machine vision cameras, and fixed industrial scanners; workforce management, workflow execution and task management, and prescriptive analytics, as well as communications and collaboration solutions; and cloud-based software subscriptions, retail, and robotics automation solutions. The company serves retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, healthcare, public sector, and other industries through direct sales force, and network of channel partners. The company was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois.