Bloom Energy (BE) versus The Competition Critical Review

Bloom Energy (NYSE:BE) is one of 21 public companies in the “Electrical industrial apparatus” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Bloom Energy to related businesses based on the strength of its dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Bloom Energy and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Bloom Energy	$1.47 billion	-$302.12 million	-106.35
Bloom Energy Competitors	$534.72 million	-$136.01 million	-2.34

Bloom Energy has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its competitors. Bloom Energy is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Bloom Energy and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Bloom Energy	1	11	8	1	2.43
Bloom Energy Competitors	92	598	839	35	2.52

Bloom Energy presently has a consensus price target of $25.06, suggesting a potential upside of 17.80%. As a group, “Electrical industrial apparatus” companies have a potential upside of 15.75%. Given Bloom Energy’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Bloom Energy is more favorable than its competitors.

Volatility & Risk

Bloom Energy has a beta of 3.3, indicating that its share price is 230% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bloom Energy’s competitors have a beta of 1.46, indicating that their average share price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Bloom Energy and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Bloom Energy	-10.29%	-20.32%	-3.94%
Bloom Energy Competitors	-211.08%	-93.75%	-17.25%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

77.0% of Bloom Energy shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.1% of shares of all “Electrical industrial apparatus” companies are held by institutional investors. 8.8% of Bloom Energy shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.7% of shares of all “Electrical industrial apparatus” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Bloom Energy beats its competitors on 8 of the 13 factors compared.

About Bloom Energy

Bloom Energy Corporation designs, manufactures, sells, and installs solid-oxide fuel cell systems for on-site power generation in the United States and internationally. The company offers Bloom Energy Server, a solid oxide technology that converts fuel, such as natural gas, biogas, hydrogen, or a blend of these fuels into electricity through an electrochemical process without combustion. It sells its products through direct and indirect sales channels to utilities, data centers, agriculture, retail, hospitals, higher education, biotech, and manufacturing industries. The company was formerly known as Ion America Corp. and changed its name to Bloom Energy Corporation in 2006. Bloom Energy Corporation was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.