Contrasting Agora (NASDAQ:API) & Astea International (OTCMKTS:ATEA)

Agora (NASDAQ:API) and Astea International (OTCMKTS:ATEA) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends and earnings.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

40.4% of Agora shares are owned by institutional investors. 14.6% of Agora shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 57.5% of Astea International shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Agora and Astea International’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Agora	-31.69%	-7.32%	-6.47%
Astea International	-7.77%	-6.85%	-12.99%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Agora and Astea International”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Agora	$141.54 million	1.82	-$87.22 million	($0.46)	-6.09
Astea International	$27.47 million	1.69	$360,000.00	N/A	N/A

Astea International has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Agora.

Volatility and Risk

Agora has a beta of 0.01, indicating that its share price is 99% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Astea International has a beta of -0.3, indicating that its share price is 130% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Agora and Astea International, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Agora	0	1	0	0	2.00
Astea International	0	0	0	0	N/A

Agora currently has a consensus price target of $2.63, suggesting a potential downside of 6.07%. Given Agora’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Agora is more favorable than Astea International.

Summary

Agora beats Astea International on 6 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Agora

Agora, Inc. operates in real-time engagement technology business in the People's Republic of China, the United States, and internationally. The company offers real-time engagement platform-as-a-services providing developers with application programming interfaces to embed real-time voice, video, interactive live-streaming, chat, whiteboard, and artificial intelligence capabilities into their applications. It also provides video and voice calling, interactive live and broadcast streaming, chat, signaling, and interactive whiteboard products; and extensions, such as analytics, recording, AI noise suppression, 3D spatial audio, real-time transcription, and extensions marketplace. In addition, the company offers Application Platforms, including Flexible Classroom, a low-code application Platform as a Service, which combines video, voice, chat, signaling, whiteboard and recording functionalities into an integrated cloud-based solution for education providers; and App Builder, a no-code application platform, designed for developers with little or no coding experience to build their own applications with video conference and live streaming functionalities. It operates through Agora and Shengwang brands. Agora, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

About Astea International

Astea International Inc. develops, markets, and supports service management software solutions worldwide. It offers Astea Alliance, a service management software that addresses the service lifecycle applications, including lead generation, project quotation, service and billing, and asset retirement; and integrates and optimizes business processes for campaigns, call center, depot repair, field service, logistics, projects, and sales and order processing applications. The company also provides FieldCentrix Enterprise suite, a service management solution that runs on various mobile devices; and integrates with customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning applications. In addition, it supports deployments in on-premise, as well as cloud environments by leveraging a multi-tenant architecture; and provides infrastructure tools and services, as well as consulting, implementation, training, and maintenance services. The company's products are used in information technology, medical devices and diagnostic systems, industrial controls and instrumentation, retail/point-of-sale equipment, office automation equipment, imaging systems, fire and security, gaming/leisure equipment, facilities management, and telecommunications, and other related industries with equipment sales and service requirements. Astea International Inc. markets its products through a network of direct and indirect sales and services offices; and distributors consisting of value-added resellers, system integrators, and sales agents, as well as original equipment manufacturing partners. The company was formerly known as Applied System Technologies, Inc. and changed its name to Astea International Inc. in 1992. Astea International Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania.