Uniti Group (NASDAQ:UNIT – Get Free Report) and Telefonica (NYSE:TEF – Get Free Report) are both communication services companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk and valuation.
Risk & Volatility
Uniti Group has a beta of 1.42, meaning that its stock price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Telefonica has a beta of 0.29, meaning that its stock price is 71% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares Uniti Group and Telefonica’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Uniti Group | 28.68% | -133.07% | -4.09% |
| Telefonica | -5.23% | 8.54% | 1.96% |
Valuation & Earnings
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Uniti Group | $2.23 billion | 0.85 | $1.30 billion | $2.71 | 2.87 |
| Telefonica | $40.55 billion | 0.53 | -$53.02 million | ($0.41) | -9.29 |
Uniti Group has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Telefonica. Telefonica is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Uniti Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Uniti Group and Telefonica, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Uniti Group | 0 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2.33 |
| Telefonica | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1.50 |
Uniti Group currently has a consensus price target of $11.47, suggesting a potential upside of 47.36%. Telefonica has a consensus price target of $4.12, suggesting a potential upside of 8.01%. Given Uniti Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Uniti Group is more favorable than Telefonica.
Insider & Institutional Ownership
87.5% of Uniti Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 1.1% of Telefonica shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of Uniti Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.0% of Telefonica shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Uniti Group beats Telefonica on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Uniti Group
Uniti Group, Inc. is a real estate investment trust company, which engages in the acquisition, construction, and leasing of properties. It operates through the following business segments: Uniti Leasing, Uniti Fiber, and Corporate. The Uniti Leasing segment involves mission-critical communications assets on exclusive or shared-tenant basis, and dark fiber network. The Uniti Fiber segment includes the operation of infrastructure solutions, cell site backhauls, and dark fiber. The Corporate segment consists of office and shared service functions. The company was founded in February 2014 and is headquartered in Little Rock, AR.
About Telefonica
Telefónica, S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides telecommunications services in Europe and Latin America. The company offers mobile and related services and products, such as mobile voice, value added, mobile data and internet, wholesale, corporate, roaming, fixed wireless, and trunking and paging services. It also provides fixed telecommunication services, including PSTN lines; ISDN accesses; public telephone services; local, domestic, and international long-distance and fixed-to-mobile communications; corporate communications; supplementary value-added services; video telephony; intelligent network; and telephony information services, as well as leases and sells handset equipment and telephony information services. It also provides Internet and broadband multimedia services comprising internet service provider, portal and network, retail and wholesale broadband access, narrowband switched access, security, internet through fibre to the home, and voice over internet protocol services. In addition, the company offers leased line, virtual private network, fibre optics, web hosting and application, managed hosting, content delivery, outsourcing and application, desktop, and system integration and professional services. Further, the company offers wholesale services for telecommunication operators, including domestic interconnection and international wholesale services; leased lines for other operators; and local loop leasing services, as well as bit stream services, wholesale line rental accesses, and leased ducts for other operators' fiber deployment. Additionally, it provides video/TV services; smart connectivity and services, and consumer IoT products; financial and other payment, security, cloud, advertising, big data, and digital experience services; Aura; open gateway, living apps; smart Wi-Fi, Phoenix, NT, Solar 360, and Movistar Home devices. Telefónica, S.A. was incorporated in 1924 and is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.
Receive News & Ratings for Uniti Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Uniti Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
