Critical Contrast: Optimum Communications (NYSE:OPTU) vs. Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO)

Optimum Communications (NYSE:OPTU) and Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO) are both small-cap communication services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, risk, dividends, institutional ownership and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Optimum Communications and Criteo, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Optimum Communications	4	5	0	0	1.56
Criteo	2	4	6	0	2.33

Optimum Communications presently has a consensus target price of $0.92, indicating a potential upside of 39.29%. Criteo has a consensus target price of $22.65, indicating a potential upside of 52.22%. Given Criteo’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Criteo is more favorable than Optimum Communications.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

54.8% of Optimum Communications shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.3% of Criteo shares are held by institutional investors. 43.4% of Optimum Communications shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of Criteo shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Optimum Communications and Criteo”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Optimum Communications	$8.59 billion	0.02	-$1.87 billion	($10.39)	-0.06
Criteo	$1.94 billion	0.37	$144.60 million	$1.97	7.55

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

Profitability

This table compares Optimum Communications and Criteo’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Optimum Communications	-58.15%	N/A	-0.70%
Criteo	5.60%	14.33%	8.05%

Risk & Volatility

Optimum Communications has a beta of 1.17, suggesting that its share price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Criteo has a beta of 0.29, suggesting that its share price is 71% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Criteo beats Optimum Communications on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Optimum Communications

Altice USA, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides broadband communications and video services in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It offers broadband, video, telephony, and mobile services to approximately five million residential and business customers. The company’s video services include delivery of broadcast stations and cable networks; over the top services; video-on-demand, high-definition channels, digital video recorder, and pay-per-view services; and platforms for video programming through mobile applications. It also provides voice over Internet protocol telephone services; and mobile services, such as data, talk, and text. In addition, the company offers Ethernet, data transport, IP-based virtual private networks, Internet access, and telephony services; hosted telephony services, managed Wi-Fi, managed desktop and server backup, and collaboration services comprising audio and web conferencing; fiber-to-the-tower services to wireless carriers; data services consisting of wide area networking and dedicated data access, as well as wireless mesh networks; and enterprise class telephone services that include traditional multi-line phone service. Further, it provides business e-mail, hosted private branch exchange, web space storage, and network security monitoring; and international calling and toll free numbers. Additionally, the company offers audience-based and IP-authenticated cross-screen advertising solutions; and television and digital advertising services, as well as operates news channels under the News 12 Networks, Cheddar, and i24NEWS names. It also provides broadband communications and video services under the Optimum and Suddenlink brands. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Long Island City, New York. Altice USA, Inc. is a subsidiary of Next Alt. S.a.r.l.

About Criteo

Criteo S.A., a technology company, provides marketing and monetization services on the open Internet in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. The company's Criteo Shopper Graph, which derives clients' proprietary commerce data, such as transaction activity on their digital properties. It also offers Criteo AI Engine solutions, including lookalike finder, recommendation, and predictive bidding algorithms; recommendation algorithms, dynamic creative optimization+, sponsored product placement algorithms, and other product placement algorithms. The company's technology comprises data synchronization, storage, and analysis of distributed computing infrastructure in various geographies, as well as fast data collection and retrieval using multi-layered caching infrastructure; and experimentation platform, an offline/online testing platform to enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of prediction models. In addition, it provides Criteo Marketing Solutions that allow commerce companies to address various marketing goals by engaging their consumers with personalized ads across the web, mobile, and offline store environments; and Criteo Retail Media solutions, which allows retailers to generate advertising revenues from consumer brands, and/or to drive sales for themselves, by monetizing their data and audiences through personalized ads, either on their own digital property or on the open Internet. Further, the company offers real-time advertising technology and trading infrastructure, delivering advanced media buying, selling, and packaging capabilities for media owners, agencies, performance advertisers, and third-party AdTech platforms. It serves companies in digital retail, travel, and classifieds sectors. Criteo S.A. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Paris, France.