Financial Survey: Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) vs. Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO)

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

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Broadcom	36.57%	38.61%	17.49%
Impinj	-3.00%	8.49%	3.11%

Earnings & Valuation

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Broadcom	$63.89 billion	22.28	$23.13 billion	$5.12	58.73
Impinj	$361.08 million	8.27	-$10.85 million	($0.39)	-253.21

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

Volatility and Risk

Broadcom has a beta of 1.22, indicating that its share price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Impinj has a beta of 1.56, indicating that its share price is 56% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Broadcom and Impinj, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Broadcom	0	3	29	1	2.94
Impinj	2	2	5	0	2.33

Broadcom currently has a consensus target price of $435.30, indicating a potential upside of 44.77%. Impinj has a consensus target price of $167.63, indicating a potential upside of 69.75%. Given Impinj’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Impinj is more favorable than Broadcom.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

76.4% of Broadcom shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of Broadcom shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 12.4% of Impinj shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Broadcom beats Impinj on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Inc. designs, develops, and supplies various semiconductor devices with a focus on complex digital and mixed signal complementary metal oxide semiconductor based devices and analog III-V based products worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Semiconductor Solutions and Infrastructure Software. It provides set-top box system-on-chips (SoCs); cable, digital subscriber line, and passive optical networking central office/consumer premise equipment SoCs; wireless local area network access point SoCs; Ethernet switching and routing custom silicon solutions; serializer/deserializer application specific integrated circuits; optical and copper, and physical layer devices; and fiber optic components and RF semiconductor devices. The company also offers RF front end modules and filter; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and global positioning system/global navigation satellite system SoCs; custom touch controllers; inductive charging; attached small computer system interface, and redundant array of independent disks controllers and adapters; peripheral component interconnect express; fiber channel host bus adapters; read channel based SoCs; custom flash controllers; preamplifiers; optocouplers, industrial fiber optics, and motion control encoders and subsystems; light emitting diode, ethernet PHYs, switch ICs, and camera microcontrollers. Its products are used in various applications, including enterprise and data center networking, home connectivity, set-top boxes, broadband access, telecommunication equipment, smartphones and base stations, data center servers and storage systems, factory automation, power generation and alternative energy systems, and electronic displays. Broadcom Inc. was founded in 1961 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

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.