Critical Analysis: AstroNova (NASDAQ:ALOT) vs. Lenovo Group (OTCMKTS:LNVGF)

Lenovo Group (OTCMKTS:LNVGF) and AstroNova (NASDAQ:ALOT) are both technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Lenovo Group and AstroNova, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lenovo Group	0	0	0	0	0.00
AstroNova	1	0	0	0	1.00

Profitability

This table compares Lenovo Group and AstroNova’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lenovo Group	N/A	N/A	N/A
AstroNova	-0.88%	2.94%	1.61%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Lenovo Group and AstroNova”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lenovo Group	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.09	48.16
AstroNova	$152.17 million	1.49	-$2.38 million	($0.18)	-161.06

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

Dividends

Lenovo Group pays an annual dividend of $0.03 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. AstroNova pays an annual dividend of $0.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Lenovo Group pays out 36.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. AstroNova pays out -155.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. AstroNova is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

23.3% of Lenovo Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 43.0% of AstroNova shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.6% of AstroNova shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

AstroNova beats Lenovo Group on 8 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lenovo Group

Lenovo Group Limited, an investment holding company, develops, manufactures, and markets technology products and services. It operates through Intelligent Devices Group, Infrastructure Solutions Group, and Solutions and Services Group segments. The company offers commercial and consumer personal computers, as well as servers and workstations; and a family of mobile Internet devices, including tablets and smartphones. In addition, it provides laptops, monitors, accessories, smart home and collaboration solutions, augmented and virtual reality, commercial internet of things, and smart infrastructure data center solutions. Further, the company manufactures and distributes IT products, computers, computer hardware, and peripheral equipment; and offers IT, business planning, management, supply chain, finance, administration support, procurement agency, data management, intellectual property, and investment management services. Additionally, it is involved in the retail and service business for consumer electronic products and related digital services; development, ownership, licensing, and sale of communications hardware and software; and develops software and applications. Furthermore, the company distributes smartphone, tablet, server, and storage. It operates in China, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Lenovo Group Limited was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong.

About AstroNova

AstroNova, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes specialty printers, and data acquisition and analysis systems in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, Central and South America, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Product Identification (PI) and Test & Measurement (T&M). The PI segment offers tabletop and production-ready digital color label printers, and OEM printing systems under the QuickLabel brand; digital color label mini-presses and inline printing systems under the TrojanLabel brand; and label materials, tags material, inks, toners, and thermal transfer ribbions under the GetLabels brand. This segment also develops and licenses various specialized software programs to design and manage labels and print images; and provides training and support. This segment serves chemicals, cosmetics, food and beverage, medical products, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and other industries; and brand owners, label converters, commercial printers, and packaging manufacturers. The T&M segment offers airborne printing solutions, such as ToughWriter used to print hard copies of navigation maps, arrival and departure information, flight itineraries, weather maps, performance data, passenger data, and various air traffic control data; ToughSwitch, an ethernet switches used to connect multiple computers or Ethernet devices; TMX data acquisition systems; Daxus DXS-100 distributed data acquisition platform; SmartCorder DDX100 portable data acquisition systems for facility and field testing; and Everest EV-5000, a digital strip chart recording system used primarily in aerospace and defense. This segment serves aerospace and aerospace and defense, automotive, commercial airline, energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries. The company was formerly known as Astro-Med, Inc. and changed its name to AstroNova, Inc. in May 2016. AstroNova, Inc. was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in West Warwick, Rhode Island.