Comparing VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) & Nexxen International (NASDAQ:NEXN)

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) and Nexxen International (NASDAQ:NEXN) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk, dividends and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares VNET Group and Nexxen International’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
VNET Group	-39.32%	-15.69%	-3.58%
Nexxen International	-3.12%	4.86%	2.96%

Risk & Volatility

VNET Group has a beta of -0.35, indicating that its share price is 135% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nexxen International has a beta of 1.83, indicating that its share price is 83% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

72.8% of VNET Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 54.2% of Nexxen International shares are held by institutional investors. 12.1% of VNET Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares VNET Group and Nexxen International’s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
VNET Group	$1.04 billion	0.57	-$372.38 million	($2.64)	-0.88
Nexxen International	$331.99 million	1.27	-$21.49 million	($0.13)	-46.92

Nexxen International has lower revenue, but higher earnings than VNET Group. Nexxen International is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than VNET Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for VNET Group and Nexxen International, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
VNET Group	0	0	1	0	3.00
Nexxen International	0	1	3	0	2.75

VNET Group presently has a consensus price target of $2.85, suggesting a potential upside of 23.38%. Nexxen International has a consensus price target of $7.88, suggesting a potential upside of 29.10%. Given Nexxen International’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Nexxen International is more favorable than VNET Group.

Summary

Nexxen International beats VNET Group on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About VNET Group

VNET Group, Inc., an investment holding company, provides hosting and related services in China. It offers managed hosting services consisting of managed retail services, such as colocation services that dedicate data center space to house customers' servers and networking equipment, as well as allow customers to lease partial or entire cabinets for their servers; interconnectivity services that allow customers to connect their servers; value-added services, including hybrid IT, bare metal, firewall, server load balancing, data backup and recovery, data center management, server management, and backup server services; cloud services that allow customers to run applications over the internet using IT infrastructure; and VPN Services that extend customers' private networks by setting up connections through the public internet. The company also provides server administration services, such as operating system support and assistance with updates, server monitoring, server backup and restoration, server security evaluation, firewall services, and disaster recovery services. It serves information technology and cloud services, communications and social networking, gaming and entertainment, e-commerce, automobile, financial services, and blue-chip and small-to-mid-sized enterprises; government agencies; individuals; and telecommunication carriers. The company was formerly known as 21Vianet Group, Inc. and changed its name to VNET Group, Inc. in October 2021. VNET Group, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.

About Nexxen International

Nexxen International Ltd. provides end-to-end software platform that enables advertisers to reach publishers Israel. The company's demand side platform (DSP) offers full-service and self-managed marketplace access to advertisers and agencies to execute their digital marketing campaigns in real time across various ad formats. Its sell supply side platform (SSP) provides access to data and a comprehensive product suite to drive inventory management and revenue optimization. The company also offers data management platform solution, which integrates DSP and SSP solutions enabling advertisers and publishers to use data from various sources in order to optimize results of their advertising campaigns. It serves ad buyers, advertisers, brands, agencies, and digital publishers in the United States, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The company was formerly known as Tremor International Ltd and changed its name to Nexxen International Ltd. in January 2024. Nexxen International Ltd. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.