Head-To-Head Review: SoundThinking (SSTI) versus Its Rivals

SoundThinking (NASDAQ:SSTI) is one of 954 public companies in the “Software” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare SoundThinking to related businesses based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, risk, profitability, dividends and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for SoundThinking and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
SoundThinking	1	8	0	0	1.89
SoundThinking Competitors	5780	21582	44966	1500	2.57

SoundThinking currently has a consensus target price of $9.79, indicating a potential upside of 18.33%. As a group, “Software” companies have a potential upside of 29.09%. Given SoundThinking’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe SoundThinking has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Volatility & Risk

SoundThinking has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its stock price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SoundThinking’s competitors have a beta of 1.34, indicating that their average stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares SoundThinking and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
SoundThinking	$97.96 million	-$9.42 million	-6.41
SoundThinking Competitors	$1.80 billion	$385.28 million	109.00

SoundThinking’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than SoundThinking. SoundThinking 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.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
SoundThinking	-16.92%	-23.77%	-12.90%
SoundThinking Competitors	-607.19%	26.73%	-8.88%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

60.7% of SoundThinking shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 41.9% of shares of all “Software” companies are held by institutional investors. 10.9% of SoundThinking shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 19.9% of shares of all “Software” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

SoundThinking competitors beat SoundThinking on 11 of the 13 factors compared.

SoundThinking Company Profile

SoundThinking, Inc. is a public safety technology company that provides data-driven tools to help law enforcement and other public safety organizations detect, analyze and respond to crime. The company’s platform combines acoustic sensors, artificial intelligence, data analytics and investigative software to support emergency response, investigations and resource allocation. Its flagship ShotSpotter service uses a network of acoustic sensors and machine-learning technology to detect, locate and analyze suspected gunfire, helping agencies identify incidents that may not be reported through emergency calls.