Head to Head Survey: Phunware (NASDAQ:PHUN) and TaskUs (NASDAQ:TASK)

TaskUs (NASDAQ:TASK) and Phunware (NASDAQ:PHUN) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

44.6% of TaskUs shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 7.6% of Phunware shares are held by institutional investors. 29.3% of TaskUs shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of Phunware shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares TaskUs and Phunware’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
TaskUs	5.58%	17.73%	9.17%
Phunware	-867.61%	-244.22%	-119.14%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for TaskUs and Phunware, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
TaskUs	1	3	4	0	2.38
Phunware	0	1	2	0	2.67

TaskUs presently has a consensus target price of $17.00, indicating a potential upside of 8.70%. Phunware has a consensus target price of $13.00, indicating a potential upside of 235.05%. Given Phunware’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Phunware is more favorable than TaskUs.

Volatility & Risk

TaskUs has a beta of 2.21, indicating that its stock price is 121% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Phunware has a beta of 2.22, indicating that its stock price is 122% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares TaskUs and Phunware”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
TaskUs	$924.36 million	1.51	$45.69 million	$0.59	26.51
Phunware	$4.83 million	16.20	-$52.78 million	N/A	N/A

TaskUs has higher revenue and earnings than Phunware.

Summary

TaskUs beats Phunware on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About TaskUs

TaskUs, Inc. provides digital outsourcing services for companies in Philippines, the United States, India, and internationally. It offers digital customer experience that consists of omni-channel customer care services primarily delivered through non-voice digital channels; and other solutions, including experience and customer care services for new product or market launches, and customer acquisition solutions. The company also provides trust and safety solutions, such as review and disposition of user and advertiser generated visual, text, and audio content, which include removal or labeling of policy violating, and offensive or misleading content, as well as risk management, compliance, identity management, and fraud services; and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that consist of data labeling, annotation, context relevance, and transcription services for training and tuning machine learning algorithms that enables to develop AI systems. It serves clients in various industry segments comprising e-commerce, FinTech, food delivery and ride sharing, gaming, technology, HealthTech, social media, and streaming media. The company was formerly known as TU TopCo, Inc. and changed its name to TaskUs, Inc. in December 2020. TaskUs, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New Braunfels, Texas.

About Phunware

Phunware, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated software platform that equips companies with the products, solutions, and services to engage, manage, and monetize their mobile application portfolios in the United States and internationally. The company's products and services include mobile software and application transaction solutions comprise integration of software development kit (SDK) licenses, which consists of analytics that offers data related to application use and engagement; content management that allows application administrators to create and manage app content in a cloud-based portal; alerts, notifications, and messaging, which enables brands to send messages; marketing automation that enables location-triggered messages and workflow; advertising; and location-based services, such as mapping, navigation, wayfinding, workflow, asset management, and policy enforcement. It is also involved in the integration of its SDK licenses into existing applications maintained by its customers, as well as custom application development and support services; and provision of cloud-based vertical solutions for healthcare, retail, sports, aviation, real estate, hospitality, education, and other applications, as well as application transactions, including re-occurring and one-time transactional media purchases for application discovery, user acquisition and audience building, audience engagement, and audience monetization. Phunware, Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.