Reviewing BIO-key International (BKYI) and Its Competitors

BIO-key International (NASDAQ:BKYI) is one of 953 public companies in the “Software” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare BIO-key International to related businesses based on the strength of its valuation, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for BIO-key International and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BIO-key International	1	1	0	0	1.50
BIO-key International Competitors	5747	21523	44878	1497	2.57

As a group, “Software” companies have a potential upside of 28.85%. Given BIO-key International’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe BIO-key International has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

26.5% of BIO-key International shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 41.8% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by institutional investors. 4.0% of BIO-key International shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 19.9% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares BIO-key International and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BIO-key International	-50.01%	-67.31%	-40.28%
BIO-key International Competitors	-612.64%	20.88%	-8.99%

Risk and Volatility

BIO-key International has a beta of 0.52, meaning that its share price is 48% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BIO-key International’s competitors have a beta of 1.21, meaning that their average share price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares BIO-key International and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
BIO-key International	$6.09 million	-$7.16 million	-0.58
BIO-key International Competitors	$1.79 billion	$385.91 million	106.78

BIO-key International’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than BIO-key International. BIO-key International 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.

Summary

BIO-key International competitors beat BIO-key International on 12 of the 13 factors compared.

BIO-key International Company Profile

BIO-key International, Inc. develops and markets fingerprint identification biometric technology and software solutions, and enterprise-ready identity access management solutions for commercial, government, and education customers in the United States and internationally. The company offers BIO-key PortalGuard and PortalGuard IDaaS solutions, a customer-controlled and neutral-by-design cloud-based identity platform that allows customers to integrate with any cloud or on-premises SaaS application, as well as windows device authentication through IAM platform. Its solutions enable its customers to secure their workforces and student populations; and make their partner networks more collaborative. In addition, it provides BIO-key VST and WEB-key products; and Civil and Large-Scale ID Infrastructure solutions that develops finger-based biometric technology. Further, it offers finger scanners for enterprise and consumer markets under SideSwipe, EcoID, and SidePass brand names. The company was formerly known as SAC Technologies and changed its name to BIO-key International, Inc. in 2002. BIO-key International, Inc. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Wall, New Jersey.