Comparing VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) and Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM)

Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM) and VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) are both technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, dividends, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Akamai Technologies and VNET Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Akamai Technologies	9.51%	11.32%	4.47%
VNET Group	-22.29%	-36.25%	-4.43%

Risk & Volatility

Akamai Technologies has a beta of 0.62, meaning that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, VNET Group has a beta of 0.23, meaning that its stock price is 77% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

94.3% of Akamai Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 72.8% of VNET Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.3% of Akamai Technologies shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 12.1% of VNET Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Akamai Technologies and VNET Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Akamai Technologies	$4.21 billion	3.71	$452.03 million	$2.78	39.07
VNET Group	$10.74 billion	0.14	-$36.01 million	($1.42)	-3.80

Akamai Technologies has higher earnings, but lower revenue than VNET Group. VNET Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Akamai Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Akamai Technologies and VNET Group, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Akamai Technologies	2	9	13	0	2.46
VNET Group	1	1	4	0	2.50

Akamai Technologies presently has a consensus price target of $150.10, suggesting a potential upside of 38.18%. VNET Group has a consensus price target of $16.90, suggesting a potential upside of 212.92%. Given VNET Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe VNET Group is more favorable than Akamai Technologies.

Summary

Akamai Technologies beats VNET Group on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Akamai Technologies

Akamai Technologies, Inc. provides cloud computing, security, and content delivery services in the United States and internationally. The company offers cloud solutions to keep infrastructure, websites, applications, application programming interfaces, and users safe from various cyberattacks and online threats while enhancing performance. It also provides web and mobile performance solutions to enable dynamic websites and applications; media delivery solutions, including video streaming and video player services, game and software delivery, broadcast operations, authoritative domain name system, resolution, and data and analytics; and cloud computing services, such as compute, storage, networking, database, and container management services to build, deploy, and secure applications and workloads. In addition, the company offers content delivery solutions; and an array of service and support to assist customers with integrating, configuring, optimizing, and managing its offerings. It sells its solutions through various channel partners. Akamai Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About VNET Group

VNET Group, Inc., an investment holding company, provides hosting and related services in China. It offers managed hosting services consisting of managed retail services, such as colocation services that dedicate data center space to house customers' servers and networking equipment, as well as allow customers to lease partial or entire cabinets for their servers; interconnectivity services that allow customers to connect their servers; value-added services, including hybrid IT, bare metal, firewall, server load balancing, data backup and recovery, data center management, server management, and backup server services; cloud services that allow customers to run applications over the internet using IT infrastructure; and VPN Services that extend customers' private networks by setting up connections through the public internet. The company also provides server administration services, such as operating system support and assistance with updates, server monitoring, server backup and restoration, server security evaluation, firewall services, and disaster recovery services. It serves information technology and cloud services, communications and social networking, gaming and entertainment, e-commerce, automobile, financial services, and blue-chip and small-to-mid-sized enterprises; government agencies; individuals; and telecommunication carriers. The company was formerly known as 21Vianet Group, Inc. and changed its name to VNET Group, Inc. in October 2021. VNET Group, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.