SAP (NYSE:SAP – Get Free Report) and Appian (NASDAQ:APPN – Get Free Report) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.
Insider & Institutional Ownership
52.7% of Appian shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.4% of SAP shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 44.0% of Appian shares are owned 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.
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for SAP and Appian, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| SAP | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 2.89 |
| Appian | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2.00 |
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares SAP and Appian”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| SAP | $33.27 billion | 8.91 | $6.64 billion | $2.50 | 96.56 |
| Appian | $595.66 million | 4.86 | -$111.44 million | ($1.22) | -27.78 |
SAP has higher revenue and earnings than Appian. Appian is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than SAP, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Risk and Volatility
SAP has a beta of 1.23, suggesting that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Appian has a beta of 1.61, suggesting that its stock price is 61% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares SAP and Appian’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| SAP | 8.15% | 11.44% | 6.92% |
| Appian | -14.88% | -532.05% | -10.11% |
Summary
SAP beats Appian on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About SAP
SAP SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides applications, technology, and services worldwide. It offers SAP S/4HANA that provides software capabilities for finance, risk and project management, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and asset management, and research and development; SAP SuccessFactors solutions for human resources, including HR and payroll, talent and employee experience management, and people and workforce analytics; and spend management solutions that covers direct and indirect spend, travel and expense, and external workforce management. The company also provides SAP customer experience solutions; SAP Business Technology platform that enables customers and partners to build, integrate, and automate applications; and SAP Business Network, a business-to-business collaboration platform that helps digitalize key business processes across the supply chain and enables communication between trading partners. In addition, it offers SAP Signavio to help customers to discover, analyze, and understand their business process operations; SAP's industry cloud solutions that provides modular solutions addressing industry-specific functions; Taulia solutions for working capital management to help enable customers mitigate the effects of inflation by providing visibility into working capital and access to liquidity; and sustainability solutions and services. SAP SE was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Walldorf, Germany.
About Appian
Appian Corporation, a software company that provides low-code design platform in the United States, Mexico, Portugal, and internationally. The company's platform offers artificial intelligence, process automation, data fabric, and process mining. It provides The Appian Platform, an integrated automation platform that enables organizations to design, automate, and optimize mission-critical business processes. The company also offers professional and customer support services. It serves to financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and transportation industries. Appian Corporation was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.
Receive News & Ratings for SAP Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for SAP and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
