Comparing Appian (APPN) and Its Rivals

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

52.7% of Appian shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 41.8% of shares of all “Software” companies are held by institutional investors. 42.8% of Appian shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 19.9% of shares of all “Software” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Appian and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Appian	2	4	2	0	2.00
Appian Competitors	5748	21526	44879	1497	2.57

Appian presently has a consensus price target of $44.33, suggesting a potential downside of 14.08%. As a group, “Software” companies have a potential upside of 28.94%. Given Appian’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Appian has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Volatility & Risk

Appian has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Appian’s competitors have a beta of 1.34, meaning that their average stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Appian and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Appian	$842.93 million	$1.23 million	-645.00
Appian Competitors	$1.80 billion	$385.92 million	108.64

Appian’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Appian. Appian 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 Appian and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Appian	-0.72%	-47.34%	5.26%
Appian Competitors	-612.66%	21.01%	-8.93%

Summary

Appian competitors beat Appian on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

About Appian

Appian Corporation, a software company that provides low-code design platform in the United States, Mexico, Portugal, and internationally. The company's platform offers artificial intelligence, process automation, data fabric, and process mining. It provides The Appian Platform, an integrated automation platform that enables organizations to design, automate, and optimize mission-critical business processes. The company also offers professional and customer support services. It serves to financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and transportation industries. Appian Corporation was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.