Reviewing MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) and WEBTOON Entertainment (NASDAQ:WBTN)

WEBTOON Entertainment (NASDAQ:WBTN) and MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) are both small-cap communication services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for WEBTOON Entertainment and MediaAlpha, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
WEBTOON Entertainment	1	5	1	0	2.00
MediaAlpha	0	5	3	1	2.56

WEBTOON Entertainment presently has a consensus price target of $10.88, suggesting a potential upside of 0.23%. MediaAlpha has a consensus price target of $14.29, suggesting a potential upside of 24.82%. Given MediaAlpha’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe MediaAlpha is more favorable than WEBTOON Entertainment.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

64.4% of MediaAlpha shares are held by institutional investors. 5.6% of WEBTOON Entertainment shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.6% of MediaAlpha shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares WEBTOON Entertainment and MediaAlpha’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
WEBTOON Entertainment	-25.09%	2.10%	1.60%
MediaAlpha	7.94%	-301.42%	28.23%

Volatility & Risk

WEBTOON Entertainment has a beta of 2.62, suggesting that its stock price is 162% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MediaAlpha has a beta of 1.16, suggesting that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares WEBTOON Entertainment and MediaAlpha”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
WEBTOON Entertainment	$1.38 billion	1.06	-$345.93 million	($2.63)	-4.13
MediaAlpha	$1.11 billion	0.63	$25.62 million	$1.62	7.06

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

Summary

MediaAlpha beats WEBTOON Entertainment on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About WEBTOON Entertainment

WEBTOON Entertainment Inc. operates a storytelling platform worldwide. The company’s platform allows a community of creators and users to discover, create, and share new content. Its platform offers stories primarily in two ways, including web-comics, a graphical comic-like medium; and web-novels, which are text-based stories. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. WEBTOON Entertainment Inc. is a subsidiary of NAVER Corporation.

About MediaAlpha

MediaAlpha, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates an insurance customer acquisition platform in the United States. It optimizes customer acquisition in various verticals of property and casualty insurance, health insurance, and life insurance. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.