Analyzing GCT Semiconductor (NYSE:GCTS) and SUMCO (OTCMKTS:SUOPY)

SUMCO (OTCMKTS:SUOPY) and GCT Semiconductor (NYSE:GCTS) are both technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

0.0% of SUMCO shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 28.1% of GCT Semiconductor shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.8% of GCT Semiconductor shares are owned by company 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for SUMCO and GCT Semiconductor, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
SUMCO	0	1	1	0	2.50
GCT Semiconductor	1	0	2	0	2.33

GCT Semiconductor has a consensus target price of $3.50, suggesting a potential upside of 64.01%. Given GCT Semiconductor’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe GCT Semiconductor is more favorable than SUMCO.

Volatility and Risk

SUMCO has a beta of 1.55, indicating that its share price is 55% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, GCT Semiconductor has a beta of 1.78, indicating that its share price is 78% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares SUMCO and GCT Semiconductor’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
SUMCO	-6.60%	-4.24%	-2.41%
GCT Semiconductor	-1,301.99%	N/A	-189.45%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares SUMCO and GCT Semiconductor”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
SUMCO	$2.74 billion	2.77	-$78.72 million	($1.03)	-42.12
GCT Semiconductor	$2.87 million	68.38	-$43.37 million	($0.80)	-2.67

GCT Semiconductor has lower revenue, but higher earnings than SUMCO. SUMCO is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than GCT Semiconductor, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

GCT Semiconductor beats SUMCO on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About SUMCO

Sumco Corporation manufactures and sells silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry in Japan, the United States, China, Taiwan, Korea, and internationally. It provides monocrystalline ingots, as well as polished, annealed, epitaxial, junction isolated, silicon-on-insulator, and reclaimed polished wafers. The company was formerly known as Sumitomo Mitsubishi Silicon Corp. and changed its name to Sumco Corporation in August 2005. Sumco Corporation was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

About GCT Semiconductor

GCT Semiconductor Holding, Inc., operates as a fabless semiconductor company, designs, develops, and markets integrated circuits for the wireless semiconductor industry. The company provides RF and modem chipsets based on 4G LTE technology, including 4G LTE, 4.5G LTE Advanced, and 4.75G LTE Advanced-Pro. It also develops and sells cellular IoT chipsets for low-speed mobile networks such as eMTC/NB-IOT/Sigfox, and other network protocols; and 5G solutions. Its products and solutions are used in smartphones, tablets, hotspots, CPEs, USB dongles, routers, and M2M applications. The company sells its products directly or indirectly through distributors to original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers primarily in Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan, Europe, North America and South America. The company was formerly known as Global Communication Technology, Inc. GCT Semiconductor Holding, Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.