Contrasting N-able (NYSE:NABL) & Cheetah Mobile (NYSE:CMCM)

N-able (NYSE:NABL) and Cheetah Mobile (NYSE:CMCM) are both small-cap technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, dividends, valuation and profitability.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares N-able and Cheetah Mobile”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
N-able	$511.43 million	1.57	-$18.82 million	($0.02)	-212.25
Cheetah Mobile	$1.12 billion	0.07	-$36.85 million	($1.51)	-1.80

N-able has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Cheetah Mobile. N-able is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cheetah Mobile, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares N-able and Cheetah Mobile’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
N-able	-0.88%	3.55%	2.04%
Cheetah Mobile	-28.11%	-8.54%	-3.22%

Risk and Volatility

N-able has a beta of 0.46, meaning that its share price is 54% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cheetah Mobile has a beta of 1.84, meaning that its share price is 84% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

96.3% of N-able shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.4% of Cheetah Mobile shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.0% of N-able shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.1% of Cheetah Mobile shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for N-able and Cheetah Mobile, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
N-able	2	4	2	0	2.00
Cheetah Mobile	1	0	0	0	1.00

N-able presently has a consensus target price of $5.08, suggesting a potential upside of 19.67%. Given N-able’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe N-able is more favorable than Cheetah Mobile.

Summary

N-able beats Cheetah Mobile on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About N-able

N-able, Inc. provides cloud-based software solutions for managed service providers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company's solutions enable MSPs to support digital transformation and growth within small and medium-sized enterprises. It provides software platform designed to be an integrated, enterprise-grade solution that serves as an operating system for its MSP partners and scales as their businesses grow. In addition, the company offers remote monitoring and management solutions provide MSP partners with visibility and insights into the availability and performance of their customers' networks, infrastructure, devices and applications through a centralized dashboard; data protection as-a-service solutions, such as backup and disaster recovery for servers, virtual machines, workstations, files, data, and key cloud-based applications, as well as multi-tenant platform and secure remote delivery architecture. Further, it offers security services through patch management, endpoint security, managed detection and response, web protection, e-mail security, and archiving and vulnerability assessment solutions. Additionally, the company engages in professional services automation, automation and scripting management, password management policies and reporting, and analytics. N-able, Inc. was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.

About Cheetah Mobile

Cheetah Mobile Inc. along with its subsidiaries, engages in provision of internet services, artificial intelligence, and other services in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Japan, and internationally. The company's internet products include Duba Anti-virus, an internet security application to protect users against known and unknown security threats and malicious applications; and Clean Master, a junk file cleaning, memory boosting, and privacy protection tool for mobile devices. It also offers value-added products, such as PC and mobile products, as well as wallpaper, office optimization software, and others; E-Coupon vending robot, a delivery and reception robot, which includes marketing campaigns and services; and multi-cloud management platform and overseas advertising agency service. In addition, the company provides mobile advertising services; duba.com personal start page that aggregates online resources and provides users access to their online destinations, such as online shopping, video, online game, travel, and local information; artificial intelligence and other services; and premium membership services. It serves mobile advertising networks and partners, e-commerce companies, mobile application developers, and mobile game developers, as well as individual customers. The company was formerly known as Kingsoft Internet Software Holdings Limited and changed its name to Cheetah Mobile Inc. in March 2014. Cheetah Mobile Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is based in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.