TaskUs (NASDAQ:TASK – Get Free Report) and Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD – Get Free Report) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, risk, dividends, earnings and institutional ownership.
Profitability
This table compares TaskUs and Applied Digital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| TaskUs | 5.44% | 16.93% | 8.64% |
| Applied Digital | -88.95% | -111.80% | -26.35% |
Risk and Volatility
TaskUs has a beta of 2.29, suggesting that its stock price is 129% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Applied Digital has a beta of 4.51, suggesting that its stock price is 351% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Earnings & Valuation
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| TaskUs | $925.29 million | 1.17 | $45.69 million | $0.51 | 24.06 |
| Applied Digital | $165.57 million | 10.69 | -$149.27 million | ($0.79) | -10.44 |
TaskUs has higher revenue and earnings than Applied Digital. Applied Digital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than TaskUs, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for TaskUs and Applied Digital, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| TaskUs | 1 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2.13 |
| Applied Digital | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3.00 |
TaskUs presently has a consensus target price of $15.38, indicating a potential upside of 25.31%. Applied Digital has a consensus target price of $8.40, indicating a potential upside of 1.82%. Given TaskUs’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe TaskUs is more favorable than Applied Digital.
Institutional and Insider Ownership
44.6% of TaskUs shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 65.7% of Applied Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 29.3% of TaskUs shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 20.5% of Applied Digital shares are owned by 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.
Summary
TaskUs beats Applied Digital on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About TaskUs
TaskUs, Inc. provides digital outsourcing services for companies in Philippines, the United States, India, and internationally. It offers digital customer experience that consists of omni-channel customer care services primarily delivered through non-voice digital channels; and other solutions, including experience and customer care services for new product or market launches, and customer acquisition solutions. The company also provides trust and safety solutions, such as review and disposition of user and advertiser generated visual, text, and audio content, which include removal or labeling of policy violating, and offensive or misleading content, as well as risk management, compliance, identity management, and fraud services; and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that consist of data labeling, annotation, context relevance, and transcription services for training and tuning machine learning algorithms that enables to develop AI systems. It serves clients in various industry segments comprising e-commerce, FinTech, food delivery and ride sharing, gaming, technology, HealthTech, social media, and streaming media. The company was formerly known as TU TopCo, Inc. and changed its name to TaskUs, Inc. in December 2020. TaskUs, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New Braunfels, Texas.
About Applied Digital
Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services. The company was formerly known as Applied Blockchain, Inc. and changed its name to Applied Digital Corporation in November 2022. Applied Digital Corporation is based in Dallas, Texas.
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