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).
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) are both large-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, media sentiment, dividends, valuation, earnings, profitability, community ranking and analyst recommendations.
Apple has a beta of 1.26, suggesting that its stock price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Microsoft has a beta of 0.89, suggesting that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Apple presently has a consensus target price of $204.71, suggesting a potential upside of 7.81%. Microsoft has a consensus target price of $454.70, suggesting a potential upside of 8.21%. Given Apple's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Microsoft is more favorable than Apple.
60.4% of Apple shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 71.1% of Microsoft shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Apple shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.0% of Microsoft shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
In the previous week, Apple had 18 more articles in the media than Microsoft. MarketBeat recorded 145 mentions for Apple and 127 mentions for Microsoft. Apple's average media sentiment score of 0.52 beat Microsoft's score of 0.38 indicating that Microsoft is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Microsoft has a net margin of 36.43% compared to Microsoft's net margin of 26.31%. Microsoft's return on equity of 148.33% beat Apple's return on equity.
Apple pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Microsoft pays an annual dividend of $3.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.7%. Apple pays out 15.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Microsoft pays out 26.0% 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. Apple has increased its dividend for 13 consecutive years and Microsoft has increased its dividend for 22 consecutive years. Microsoft is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Apple received 4085 more outperform votes than Microsoft when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 82.24% of users gave Apple an outperform vote while only 72.57% of users gave Microsoft an outperform vote.
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.
Summary
Apple and Microsoft tied by winning 11 of the 22 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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