Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) & ACM Research (NASDAQ:ACMR) Critical Review

ACM Research (NASDAQ:ACMR) and Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) are both technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, institutional ownership and profitability.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

66.7% of ACM Research shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.5% of Marvell Technology shares are held by institutional investors. 24.4% of ACM Research shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Marvell Technology shares are held by company 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.

Volatility and Risk

ACM Research has a beta of 1.96, indicating that its stock price is 96% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Marvell Technology has a beta of 2.25, indicating that its stock price is 125% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares ACM Research and Marvell Technology’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ACM Research	14.48%	4.08%	2.80%
Marvell Technology	27.93%	13.57%	8.98%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for ACM Research and Marvell Technology, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ACM Research	0	1	4	1	3.00
Marvell Technology	0	7	29	3	2.90

ACM Research currently has a consensus price target of $122.75, suggesting a potential upside of 51.69%. Marvell Technology has a consensus price target of $272.00, suggesting a potential upside of 2.95%. Given ACM Research’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe ACM Research is more favorable than Marvell Technology.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares ACM Research and Marvell Technology”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ACM Research	$901.31 million	5.81	$94.08 million	$2.10	38.53
Marvell Technology	$8.19 billion	28.27	$2.67 billion	$3.03	87.20

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

Summary

Marvell Technology beats ACM Research on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ACM Research

ACM Research, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and sells single-wafer wet cleaning equipment for enhancing the manufacturing process and yield for integrated chips worldwide. It offers space alternated phase shift technology for flat and patterned wafer surfaces, which employs alternating phases of megasonic waves to deliver megasonic energy in a uniform manner on a microscopic level; timely energized bubble oscillation technology for patterned wafer surfaces at advanced process nodes, which provides cleaning for 2D and 3D patterned wafers; Tahoe technology for delivering cleaning performance using less sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide; and electro-chemical plating technology for advanced metal plating. The company markets and sells its products under the SAPS, TEBO, ULTRA C, ULTRA Fn, Ultra ECP, Ultra ECP map, and Ultra ECP ap trademarks through direct sales force and third-party representatives. ACM Research, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Fremont, California.

About Marvell Technology

Marvell Technology, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, spanning the data center core to network edge. The company develops and scales complex System-on-a-Chip architectures, integrating analog, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing functionality. It offers a portfolio of Ethernet solutions, including controllers, network adapters, physical transceivers, and switches; single or multiple core processors; and custom application specific integrated circuits. The company also provides electro-optical products, including pulse amplitude modulations, coherent digital signal processors, laser drivers, trans-impedance amplifiers, silicon photonics, and data center interconnect solutions; fibre channel products comprising host bus adapters and controllers; storage controllers for hard disk drives and solid-state-drives; and host system interfaces, including serial attached SCSI, serial advanced technology attachment, peripheral component interconnect express, non-volatile memory express (NVMe), and NVMe over fabrics. It has operations in the United States, Argentina, China, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Marvell Technology, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware.