Alps Electric (OTCMKTS:APELY) & CDW (NASDAQ:CDW) Head to Head Contrast

CDW (NASDAQ:CDW) and Alps Electric (OTCMKTS:APELY) are both technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for CDW and Alps Electric, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CDW	0	3	5	1	2.78
Alps Electric	1	0	0	0	1.00

CDW currently has a consensus target price of $147.00, indicating a potential downside of 0.47%. Given CDW’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe CDW is more favorable than Alps Electric.

Dividends

CDW pays an annual dividend of $2.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. Alps Electric pays an annual dividend of $0.47 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. CDW pays out 30.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Alps Electric pays out 27.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. CDW has increased its dividend for 10 consecutive years. CDW is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

93.2% of CDW shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.1% of Alps Electric shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.8% of CDW shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 10.4% of Alps Electric shares are owned by 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.

Profitability

This table compares CDW and Alps Electric’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CDW	4.60%	50.61%	7.91%
Alps Electric	2.64%	7.24%	4.09%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares CDW and Alps Electric”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CDW	$22.42 billion	0.82	$1.07 billion	$8.32	17.75
Alps Electric	$6.77 billion	0.43	$177.41 million	$1.74	15.93

CDW has higher revenue and earnings than Alps Electric. Alps Electric is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CDW, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

CDW has a beta of 0.96, meaning that its stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alps Electric has a beta of 0.37, meaning that its stock price is 63% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

CDW beats Alps Electric on 16 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CDW

CDW Corporation provides information technology (IT) solutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Corporate, Small Business, and Public. The company offers discrete hardware and software products and services, as well as integrated IT solutions, including on-premise and cloud capabilities across hybrid infrastructure, digital experience, and security. It also provides hardware products comprising notebooks/mobile devices, tablets, network communications, desktop computers, collaboration, data storage and servers, and others; and software products, such as cloud solutions, software assurance, application suites, security, virtualization, operating systems, and network management. In addition, the company offers advisory and design, software development, implementation, managed, professional, configuration, partner, and telecom services, as well as warranties; delivers and manages mission critical software, systems, and network solutions; and implementation and installation, and repair services to its customers through various third-party service providers. It serves government, education, and healthcare customers; and small, medium, and large business customers. CDW Corporation was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois.

About Alps Electric

Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. manufactures and sells electronic components in Japan and internationally. It operates through four segments: Components, Sensor Communication, Module Systems, and Logistics. The company’s products for the consumer, industrial equipment, and IoT markets include TACT switches, worker condition monitoring systems, HAPTIC reactor, actuator for cameras, remote monitoring system for logistics, analog meter monitoring system, resistive position sensor, pressure sensor, air environment sensor module, three-axis geomagnetic sensor, humidity sensor, and pc board mount current sensor. Its products for the automotive market comprises TACT and detector switches, Encoder, aspherical glass lens with metal holder, HAPTIC reactor, trimagic converter, current sensor, magnetic sensor, millimeter-wave sensor, GNSS module, 5G NR module, power window switch, electric shifter, sound system, cabin controller, smart door trim, electric shifter, integrated display, premium sound speakers, and customized car products. The company also provides systems development, office, and financing and leasing services, as well as transportation, storage, and forwarding services. The company was formerly known as Alps Electric Co., Ltd. and changed its name to Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. in January 2019. The company was incorporated in 1948 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.