Rakuten (OTCMKTS:RKUNY) vs. Getty Images (NYSE:GETY) Critical Review

Getty Images (NYSE:GETY) and Rakuten (OTCMKTS:RKUNY) are both communication services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Getty Images and Rakuten, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Getty Images	1	3	1	0	2.00
Rakuten	0	1	0	1	3.00

Getty Images currently has a consensus target price of $3.92, suggesting a potential upside of 1,348.34%. Given Getty Images’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Getty Images is more favorable than Rakuten.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

45.8% of Getty Images shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.5% of Getty Images shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Getty Images and Rakuten”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Getty Images	$981.29 million	0.12	-$206.12 million	($0.39)	-0.69
Rakuten	$16.70 billion	0.63	-$1.19 billion	($0.19)	-25.47

Getty Images has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Rakuten. Rakuten is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Getty Images, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Getty Images and Rakuten’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Getty Images	-16.24%	-26.82%	-5.25%
Rakuten	-2.48%	-5.08%	-0.23%

Risk & Volatility

Getty Images has a beta of 2.11, suggesting that its stock price is 111% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Rakuten has a beta of 1.11, suggesting that its stock price is 11% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Rakuten beats Getty Images on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Getty Images

Getty Images Holdings, Inc. offers creative and editorial visual content solutions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Its products include Getty Images that offers creative and editorial content including stills, music and video which focuses on corporate, agency, and media customers; iStock.com, an e-commerce offering where customers have access to creative stills and video; Unsplash.com, a platform offering free stock photo downloads and paid subscriptions targeted to the high-growth prosumer and semi-professional creator segments; and Unsplash+ that provides access to unique model released content with expanded legal protections. In addition, it maintains privately-owned photographic archives covering news, sport, and entertainment, as well as variety of subjects, including lifestyle, business, science, health, wellness, beauty, sports, transportation, and travel. Further, the company provides music licensing, and digital asset management and distribution services. It serves media outlets, advertising agencies and corporations, individual creators, and prosumers. The company was formerly known as Getty Images, Inc. Getty Images Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

About Rakuten

Rakuten Group, Inc. provides services in e-commerce, fintech, digital content, and communications to various users in Japan and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Internet Services, FinTech, and Mobile. The Internet Services segment provides range of e-commerce sites, such as Rakuten Ichiba, an Internet shopping mall, online cash-back sites, travel booking sites, portal sites, and digital content sites. It also offers messaging services and sells advertising; and manages professional sport teams. The FinTech segment offers financial services over the internet related to banking and securities, credit cards, life insurance, general insurance, electronic payment business, crypto asset (virtual currency) spot transaction, etc. The Mobile segment provides communication services and technology, electricity supply, and digital content site services. The company was formerly known as Rakuten, Inc. and changed its name to Rakuten Group, Inc. in April 2021. Rakuten Group, Inc. was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Setagaya, Japan.