Contrasting Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU) & Amer Sports (NYSE:AS)

Amer Sports (NYSE:AS) and Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, valuation, dividends and earnings.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

40.3% of Amer Sports shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.2% of Lululemon Athletica shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.5% of Lululemon Athletica shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Amer Sports and Lululemon Athletica, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Amer Sports	0	3	11	0	2.79
Lululemon Athletica	2	6	24	0	2.69

Amer Sports presently has a consensus target price of $18.79, suggesting a potential upside of 51.25%. Lululemon Athletica has a consensus target price of $433.06, suggesting a potential upside of 43.56%. Given Amer Sports’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Amer Sports is more favorable than Lululemon Athletica.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Amer Sports and Lululemon Athletica’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Amer Sports	$4.37 billion	1.44	-$208.60 million	N/A	N/A
Lululemon Athletica	$9.83 billion	3.84	$1.55 billion	$12.47	24.19

Lululemon Athletica has higher revenue and earnings than Amer Sports.

Profitability

This table compares Amer Sports and Lululemon Athletica’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Amer Sports	N/A	N/A	N/A
Lululemon Athletica	16.09%	42.64%	25.50%

Summary

Lululemon Athletica beats Amer Sports on 9 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Amer Sports

Amer Sports, Inc. designs, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells sports equipment, apparel, footwear, and accessories in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, China, and the Asia Pacific. It operates through three segments: Technical Apparel, Outdoor Performance, and Ball & Racquet Sports. The Technical Apparel segment offers outdoor apparel, footwear, and accessories which includes climbing gear. The Outdoor Performance segment provides hiking and running footwear, functional apparel, skiing and snowboarding gear, and lifestyle footwear. The Ball & Racquet Sports segment offers sports equipment for tennis, baseball, american football, basketball, golf, and various other professional and recreational sports. This segment provides custom-fitting protective gear and apparel for baseball, softball, football, and lacrosse. It sells its products under the Arc'teryx, PeakPerformance, Salomon, Atomic, Armada, ENVE, Wilson, Louisville Slugger, DeMarini, EvoShield, and ATEC brands. The company distributes its products through retail stores, general sporting goods retailers, specialty stores, independently operated partner stores, and distributors, as well as its e-commerce websites, and retailer-owned and third-party e-commerce websites. The company was formerly known as Amer Sports Management Holding (Cayman) Limited and changed its name to Amer Sports, Inc. in August 2023. Amer Sports, Inc. was founded in 1950 and is based in Helsinki, Finland.

About Lululemon Athletica

Lululemon Athletica Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, distributes, and retails athletic apparel, footwear, and accessories under the lululemon brand for women and men. It offers pants, shorts, tops, and jackets for healthy lifestyle, such as yoga, running, training, and other activities. It also provides fitness-inspired accessories. The company sells its products through a chain of company-operated stores; outlets; interactive workout platform; yoga and fitness studios, university campus retailers, and other partners; license and supply arrangements; and temporary locations, as well as through mobile apps and lululemon.com e-commerce website. It has operations in the United States, Canada, Mainland China, Australia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Macau, Thailand, the Asia Pacific, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Lululemon Athletica Inc. was founded in 1998 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.