How is Alphabet Inc. Performing against its Rivals?

Alphabet Inc. opened the year at $758.88 per share, hit a low of $672.32 in early February, and then rebounded. The stock rallied until 18 April 2016 when it touched a price of $766.61 per share, and then plummeted to fresh lows of $691.02 per share by 28 April. A period of consolidation has taken place since then, and the stock has now stabilized in the $700 – $705 range. In terms of its performance against its chief rivals, Alphabet Inc stands head and shoulders above most of its competition. The following data indicates the sheer size, robustness and viability as Alphabet Inc. in the industry:

While these metrics do not explain the inner mechanics of Alphabet Inc. accurately, they give an accurate representation of the sheer size and clout that Alphabet Inc is capable of exerting over the industry. If we look at the industry overall, it has an average market capitalization of $307.35 million with approximately 1.02K employees.

Analysts rate Alphabet Inc. highly with a mean recommendation of 1.8 which is a bullish rating, where 1.0 is a strong buy and 5.0 is a strong sell. Analysts also foresee the high price target of the stock reaching upwards of $1,080 per share with a low of just $800 per share – $95 higher than the current price. This indicates that the stock is undervalued. The last upgrade/downgrade we have for Alphabet Inc. from April 11, 2016 was a buy rating from a hold rating. In ascertaining why Alphabet is rated favorably or poorly, it is important to compare it to its key rivals in the industry.

If we wind back the clock 10 years, Yahoo Inc. was the chief competitor of Google. Now, things are different. Both companies were in a race for dominance, with the burgeoning Internet economy placing extreme demands on things like maps, search and email. Yahoo was heavily reliant on NetApp which allowed the company to satiate market demand. Google was not about to sit back and surrender, and it developed its own infrastructure – the Google File System. This was capable of resolving all sorts of issues including resiliency and scalability and it was capable of fast tracking multiple web-scale applications that ultimately allowed for cloud storage to evolve.