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 compare the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, media sentiment, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.
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 net margin of 36.27% compared to Apple's net margin of 26.16%. Apple's return on equity of 156.04% beat Microsoft's return on equity.
Microsoft pays an annual dividend of $3.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.7%. Apple pays an annual dividend of $0.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Microsoft pays out 27.1% 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.
Microsoft presently has a consensus price target of $434.05, indicating a potential upside of 6.50%. Apple has a consensus price target of $203.05, indicating a potential upside of 21.66%. Given Apple's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Apple is more favorable than Microsoft.
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 company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Apple shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Microsoft has a beta of 0.89, indicating that its share price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Apple has a beta of 1.27, indicating that its share price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Apple received 4086 more outperform votes than Microsoft when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 82.24% of users gave Apple an outperform vote while only 72.50% of users gave Microsoft an outperform vote.
In the previous week, Apple had 23 more articles in the media than Microsoft. MarketBeat recorded 148 mentions for Apple and 125 mentions for Microsoft. Microsoft's average media sentiment score of 0.57 beat Apple's score of 0.36 indicating that Microsoft is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
Apple beats Microsoft on 12 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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