Critical Analysis: UTStarcom (NASDAQ:UTSI) vs. Airgain (NASDAQ:AIRG)

Airgain (NASDAQ:AIRG) and UTStarcom (NASDAQ:UTSI) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

52.8% of Airgain shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 1.8% of UTStarcom shares are owned by institutional investors. 17.8% of Airgain shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.7% of UTStarcom shares are owned 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.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Airgain and UTStarcom”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Airgain	$60.60 million	0.89	-$8.69 million	($0.50)	-9.02
UTStarcom	$10.88 million	2.10	-$4.37 million	N/A	N/A

UTStarcom has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Airgain.

Volatility and Risk

Airgain has a beta of 0.87, suggesting that its share price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, UTStarcom has a beta of -0.22, suggesting that its share price is 122% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Airgain and UTStarcom, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Airgain	1	0	4	0	2.60
UTStarcom	1	0	0	0	1.00

Airgain presently has a consensus price target of $6.20, suggesting a potential upside of 37.47%. Given Airgain’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Airgain is more favorable than UTStarcom.

Profitability

This table compares Airgain and UTStarcom’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Airgain	-10.87%	-16.03%	-10.43%
UTStarcom	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Airgain beats UTStarcom on 7 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Airgain

Airgain, Inc. provides wireless connectivity solutions that creates and delivers embedded components, external antennas, and integrated systems worldwide. The company's products include MaxBeam embedded antennas; profile embedded antennas; profile contour embedded antennas; profile ceramic embedded antenna; ultra embedded antennas; and SmartMax embedded antennas. It offers embedded and NimbeLink embedded moderms; custom cellular solutions; cellular IoT development; cellular IoT development kits; and IoT data plans. In addition, the company provides 5G connectivity, smart repeaters, and fixed wireless access; asset tracking solutions, devices, and partners; and external antennas, fleet antennas, IoT antennas, network antennas, vehicle networking, partner solutions, and accessories. It offers its products under the Antenna Plus brand. It serves industrial, consumer, automotive fleet, enterprise, energy, medical, transportation, agriculture, services, and public safety markets. The company was formerly known as AM Group and changed its name to Airgain, Inc. in 2004. Airgain, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

About UTStarcom

UTStarcom Holdings Corp. operates as a telecom infrastructure provider to develop technology for bandwidth from cloud-based services, mobile, streaming, and other applications in China, India, Japan, and internationally. Its products include converged packet transport, disaggregated router platform, packet transport network, packet aggregation network, multi-services access network, fiber to the X, carrier Wi-Fi solutions, and software defined network controller products. The company also offers packet optical and network synchronization products. It serves telecommunications operators and equipment distributors. The company was founded in 1991 and is based in Hangzhou, the People's Republic of China.