Critical Review: VEON (VEON) and Its Rivals

VEON (NASDAQ:VEON) is one of 34 publicly-traded companies in the “Diversified Comm Services” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare VEON to similar businesses based on the strength of its dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk and earnings.

Risk and Volatility

VEON has a beta of 1.67, suggesting that its stock price is 67% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, VEON’s peers have a beta of 0.57, suggesting that their average stock price is 43% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for VEON and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
VEON	0	1	1	2	3.25
VEON Competitors	422	1324	1472	120	2.39

VEON currently has a consensus price target of $60.00, suggesting a potential upside of 17.32%. As a group, “Diversified Comm Services” companies have a potential upside of 21.64%. Given VEON’s peers higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe VEON has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares VEON and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
VEON	12.12%	47.86%	8.49%
VEON Competitors	1.80%	10.98%	3.06%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares VEON and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
VEON	$4.40 billion	$532.00 million	6.88
VEON Competitors	$5,473.86 billion	$1.14 billion	1.43

VEON’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than VEON. VEON is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

21.3% of VEON shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 38.9% of shares of all “Diversified Comm Services” companies are held by institutional investors. 7.6% of shares of all “Diversified Comm Services” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

VEON beats its peers on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

About VEON

VEON Ltd., a digital operator, provides connectivity and internet services in Pakistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It offers mobile telecommunications services, including value added and call completion, national and international roaming, wireless Internet access, mobile financial, and mobile bundle services; data connectivity, cross border transit, voice, Internet, and data services; fixed-line telecommunications using intercity fiber optic networks; and Internet-TV using Fiber to the building technology. The company also sells equipment, infrastructure, and accessories. VEON Ltd. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.