Critical Review: Zebra Technologies (NASDAQ:ZBRA) vs. AMETEK (NYSE:AME)

AMETEK (NYSE:AME) and Zebra Technologies (NASDAQ:ZBRA) are both large-cap technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for AMETEK and Zebra Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AMETEK	0	5	9	1	2.73
Zebra Technologies	0	5	8	0	2.62

AMETEK presently has a consensus target price of $256.29, suggesting a potential upside of 0.86%. Zebra Technologies has a consensus target price of $327.00, suggesting a potential downside of 11.34%. Given AMETEK’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe AMETEK is more favorable than Zebra Technologies.

Risk & Volatility

AMETEK has a beta of 0.98, indicating that its stock price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Zebra Technologies has a beta of 1.6, indicating that its stock price is 60% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares AMETEK and Zebra Technologies”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AMETEK	$7.40 billion	7.87	$1.48 billion	$6.62	38.38
Zebra Technologies	$5.58 billion	3.15	$419.00 million	$8.27	44.60

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

Profitability

This table compares AMETEK and Zebra Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AMETEK	20.11%	16.63%	11.06%
Zebra Technologies	7.49%	18.91%	8.30%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

87.4% of AMETEK shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.0% of Zebra Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.5% of AMETEK shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of Zebra Technologies shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

AMETEK beats Zebra Technologies on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AMETEK

AMETEK, Inc. manufactures and sells electronic instruments and electromechanical devices in the North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, and internationally. The company's EIG segment offers advanced instruments for the process, aerospace, power, and industrial markets; process and analytical instruments for the oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, automation, and food and beverage industries; instruments to the laboratory equipment, ultra-precision manufacturing, medical, and test and measurement markets; power quality monitoring and c devices, uninterruptible power supplies, programmable power and electromagnetic compatibility test equipment, and sensors for gas turbines and dashboard instruments; heavy trucks, instrumentation, and controls for the food and beverage industries; and aircraft and engine sensors, power supplies, embedded computing, monitoring, fuel and fluid measurement, and data acquisition systems for aerospace and defense industry. Its EMG segment offers engineered medical components and devices, automation solutions, thermal management systems, specialty metals, and electrical interconnects; single-use and consumable surgical instruments, implantable components, and drug delivery systems; engineered electrical connectors and electronics packaging to protect sensitive devices and mission-critical electronics; precision motion control products for data storage, medical devices, business equipment, and automation; high-purity powdered metals, strips and foils, specialty clad metals, and metal matrix composites; motor-blower systems and heat exchangers for thermal management, military and commercial aircraft, and military ground vehicles; motors for commercial appliances, food and beverage machines, hydraulic pumps, and industrial blowers; and operates a network of aviation maintenance, repair, and overhaul facilities. AMETEK, Inc. was incorporated in 1930 and is headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.

About Zebra Technologies

Zebra Technologies Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides enterprise asset intelligence solutions in the automatic identification and data capture solutions industry worldwide. It operates in two segments, Asset Intelligence & Tracking, and Enterprise Visibility & Mobility. The company designs, manufactures, and sells printers that produce labels, wristbands, tickets, receipts, and plastic cards; dye-sublimination thermal card printers that produce images, which are used for personal identification, access control, and financial transactions; radio frequency identification device (RFID) printers that encode data into passive RFID transponders; accessories and options for printers, including carrying cases, vehicle mounts, and battery chargers; stock and customized thermal labels, receipts, ribbons, plastic cards, and RFID tags for printers; and temperature-monitoring labels primarily used in vaccine distribution. It also provides various maintenance, technical support, repair, and managed and professional services; fixed readers, RFID enabled mobile computers, and RFID sleds; tags, sensors, exciters, middleware software, and application software; and physical inventory management solutions, and rugged and enterprise-grade mobile computing products and accessories, as well as real-time location systems and services. In addition, the company offers barcode scanners and imagers, RFID readers, industrial machine vision cameras, and fixed industrial scanners; workforce management, workflow execution and task management, and prescriptive analytics, as well as communications and collaboration solutions; and cloud-based software subscriptions, retail, and robotics automation solutions. The company serves retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, healthcare, public sector, and other industries through direct sales force, and network of channel partners. The company was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois.