Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) versus Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) Critical Comparison

Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) and Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Impinj and Lam Research”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Impinj	$366.09 million	13.17	$40.84 million	$0.01	16,574.00
Lam Research	$18.44 billion	6.79	$5.36 billion	$4.16	23.77

Lam Research has higher revenue and earnings than Impinj. Lam Research is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Impinj, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Impinj and Lam Research’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Impinj	0.18%	8.14%	2.64%
Lam Research	29.07%	58.17%	26.43%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Impinj and Lam Research, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Impinj	0	1	6	0	2.86
Lam Research	0	7	19	1	2.78

Impinj currently has a consensus price target of $163.2857, suggesting a potential downside of 1.48%. Lam Research has a consensus price target of $107.0870, suggesting a potential upside of 8.30%. Given Lam Research’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Lam Research is more favorable than Impinj.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

84.6% of Lam Research shares are held by institutional investors. 51.0% of Impinj shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Lam Research shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Impinj has a beta of 1.74, suggesting that its stock price is 74% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lam Research has a beta of 1.65, suggesting that its stock price is 65% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Lam Research beats Impinj on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Impinj

Impinj, Inc. operates a cloud connectivity platform in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Its platform wirelessly connects items and delivers data about the connected items to business and consumer applications. The company’s platform comprises endpoint ICs, a miniature radios-on-a-chip that attaches to a host item and includes a number to identify the item. Its platform also consists of systems products that consists of reader ICs, readers, and gateways to wirelessly provide power to and communicate bidirectionally with endpoint ICs on host items, as well as to read, write, authenticate, and engage the endpoint ICs on those items; and software and algorithms that enable its partners to solve enterprise business problems, such as retail self-checkout and loss prevention. The company primarily serves retail, supply chain and logistics, automotive, aviation, banking, datacenters, food, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing, linen and uniform tracking, sports, and travel industries through original equipment and device manufacturers, tag service bureaus, systems integrators, value-added resellers, independent software vendors, and other solution partners. Impinj, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

About Lam Research

Lam Research Corporation designs, manufactures, markets, refurbishes, and services semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The company offers ALTUS systems to deposit conformal films for tungsten metallization applications; SABRE electrochemical deposition products for copper interconnect transition that offers copper damascene manufacturing; SOLA ultraviolet thermal processing products for film treatments; and VECTOR plasma-enhanced CVD ALD products. It also provides SPEED gapfill high-density plasma chemical vapor deposition products; and Striker single-wafer atomic layer deposition products for dielectric film solutions. In addition, the company offers Flex for dielectric etch applications; Kiyo for conductor etch applications; Syndion for through-silicon via etch applications; and Versys metal products for metal etch processes. Further, it provides Coronus bevel clean products to enhance die yield; Da Vinci, DV-Prime, EOS, and SP series products to address various wafer cleaning applications; and Metryx mass metrology systems for high precision in-line mass measurement in semiconductor wafer manufacturing. The company sells its products and services to semiconductors industry in the United States, China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and internationally. The company was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Fremont, California.