MSFT vs. AAPL, NVDA, GOOG, GOOGL, AMZN, META, ORCL, CSCO, IBM, and NOW
Should you be buying Microsoft stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Microsoft include Apple (AAPL), NVIDIA (NVDA), Alphabet (GOOG), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), Oracle (ORCL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), International Business Machines (IBM), and ServiceNow (NOW).
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) are both large-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, institutional ownership, community ranking, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.
71.1% of Microsoft shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 60.4% of Apple shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.0% of Microsoft shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Apple shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Apple has higher revenue and earnings than Microsoft. Apple is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Microsoft, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Microsoft has a beta of 0.89, meaning that its share price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Apple has a beta of 1.26, meaning that its share price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Microsoft has a net margin of 36.43% compared to Apple's net margin of 26.16%. Apple's return on equity of 156.04% beat Microsoft's return on equity.
Microsoft currently has a consensus price target of $452.61, suggesting a potential upside of 13.77%. Apple has a consensus price target of $202.62, suggesting a potential upside of 17.10%. Given Apple's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Apple is more favorable than Microsoft.
Apple received 4080 more outperform votes than Microsoft when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 82.24% of users gave Apple an outperform vote while only 72.55% of users gave Microsoft an outperform vote.
In the previous week, Microsoft had 32 more articles in the media than Apple. MarketBeat recorded 185 mentions for Microsoft and 153 mentions for Apple. Microsoft's average media sentiment score of 0.68 beat Apple's score of 0.49 indicating that Microsoft is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Microsoft pays an annual dividend of $3.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Apple pays an annual dividend of $0.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Microsoft pays out 26.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Apple pays out 15.0% 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.
Summary
Apple beats Microsoft on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding MSFT and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NASDAQ and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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