Critical Survey: Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) vs. Ichor (NASDAQ:ICHR)

Ichor (NASDAQ:ICHR) and Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) are both mid-cap technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings and risk.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

94.8% of Ichor shares are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of Ichor shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 6.8% of Impinj shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Ichor has a beta of 1.79, meaning that its stock price is 79% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Impinj has a beta of 1.94, meaning that its stock price is 94% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Ichor and Impinj, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ichor	1	1	6	1	2.78
Impinj	1	3	7	0	2.55

Ichor presently has a consensus price target of $87.00, suggesting a potential upside of 39.24%. Impinj has a consensus price target of $183.30, suggesting a potential downside of 0.31%. Given Ichor’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Ichor is more favorable than Impinj.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ichor	-3.97%	0.47%	0.33%
Impinj	-7.26%	5.23%	2.09%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Ichor and Impinj”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ichor	$947.65 million	2.47	-$52.78 million	($1.17)	-53.40
Impinj	$361.08 million	15.56	-$10.85 million	($0.92)	-199.86

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

Summary

Impinj beats Ichor on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ichor

Ichor Holdings, Ltd. engages in the design, engineering, and manufacture of fluid delivery subsystems and components for semiconductor capital equipment in the United States and internationally. It primarily offers gas and chemical delivery systems and subsystems that are used in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices. The company's gas delivery subsystems deliver, monitor, and control gases used in semiconductor manufacturing processes, such as etch and deposition; and chemical delivery subsystems blend and dispense the reactive liquid chemistries used in semiconductor manufacturing processes comprising chemical-mechanical planarization, electroplating, and cleaning. In addition, it manufactures precision machined components, weldments, electron beam, laser-welded components, precision vacuum and hydrogen brazing, surface treatment technologies, and other proprietary products. The company primarily markets its products to equipment OEMs in the semiconductor equipment market in Japan. Ichor Holdings, Ltd. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Fremont, 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.