Head-To-Head Analysis: United Internet (OTCMKTS:UDIRF) vs. Weibo (NASDAQ:WB)

Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) and United Internet (OTCMKTS:UDIRF) are both communication services companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

68.8% of Weibo shares are held by institutional investors. 41.3% of Weibo shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Weibo and United Internet”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Weibo	$1.76 billion	0.94	$449.02 million	$1.21	5.55
United Internet	$6.85 billion	0.77	$114.57 million	($0.34)	-80.40

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Weibo and United Internet, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Weibo	2	3	1	0	1.83
United Internet	0	0	2	0	3.00

Weibo currently has a consensus target price of $8.80, suggesting a potential upside of 30.95%. Given Weibo’s higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Weibo is more favorable than United Internet.

Volatility & Risk

Weibo has a beta of 0.18, suggesting that its stock price is 82% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, United Internet has a beta of 0.11, suggesting that its stock price is 89% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Weibo and United Internet’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Weibo	17.78%	8.87%	4.96%
United Internet	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Weibo beats United Internet on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Weibo

Weibo Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as a social media platform for people to create, discover, and distribute content in the People’s Republic of China. It operates in two segments, Advertising and Marketing Services; and Value-Added Services. The company offers discovery products to help users discover content on its platform; self-expression products that enable its users to express themselves on its platform; and social products to promote social interaction between users on its platform. It also provides advertising and marketing solutions, such as social display advertisements; and promoted marketing offerings, such as Fans Headline and Weibo Express promoted feeds, as well as promoted trends and search products that appear alongside user’s trends discovery and search behaviors. In addition, the company offers products, such as trends, search, video/live streaming, and editing tools; content customization, copyright contents pooling, and user interaction development; and search list recommendation, trends list recommendation, and Weibo app opening advertisements. Further, it provides back-end management, traffic support, and product services for better displaying and promotion of its account and content; open application platform for other app developers that allows users to log into third-party applications with their Weibo account for sharing third-party content on its platform; and Weibo Wallet, a product that enables platform partners to conduct interest generation activities on Weibo, such as handing out red envelops and coupons. The company was formerly known as T.CN Corporation and changed its name to Weibo Corporation in 2012. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China.

About United Internet

United Internet AG, through its subsidiaries, operates as an Internet service provider worldwide. The company operates through Consumer Access, Business Access, Consumer Applications, and Business Applications segments. It offers landline-based broadband and mobile internet products, including home networks, online storage, telephony, and IPTV for private users; and telecommunication products ranging from fiber-optic direct connections to tailored ICT solutions, which include voice, data, and network solutions, as well as infrastructure services to national and international carriers and ISPs. The company also provides applications and services for home users, such as personal information management applications comprising email, to-do lists, appointments, and addresses; and online cloud storage, as well as domains and website solutions. In addition, it provides business applications for freelancers and small to medium enterprises, such as domains, websites, web hosting, servers, cloud solutions, e-shops, group work, online cloud storage, and office software. It offers its access products through the yourfone, smartmobile.de, 1&1, and 1&1 Versatel brands; and applications through GMX, mail.com, WEB.DE, home.pl, Arsys, STRATO, IONOS, Fasthosts, we22, InterNetX, united-domains, and World4You brand names. In addition, the company offers customers professional services in the fields of active domain management; performance-based advertising and sales services under the Sedo brand name; online advertising services under the United Internet Media brand name; and white-label website builder services under the we22 brand, as well as sells IT hardware. The company was incorporated in 1988 and is headquartered in Montabaur, Germany.