Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) versus SAP (NYSE:SAP) Financial Survey
by Sarita Garza · The Markets DailySAP (NYSE:SAP – Get Free Report) and Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS – Get Free Report) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability and valuation.
Risk & Volatility
SAP has a beta of 1.24, meaning that its share price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Progress Software has a beta of 0.76, meaning that its share price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares SAP and Progress Software’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| SAP | 19.92% | 16.54% | 10.28% |
| Progress Software | 8.61% | 43.67% | 8.60% |
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for SAP and Progress Software, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| SAP | 0 | 8 | 11 | 2 | 2.71 |
| Progress Software | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 2.71 |
SAP presently has a consensus price target of $305.75, indicating a potential upside of 78.69%. Progress Software has a consensus price target of $52.50, indicating a potential upside of 84.92%. Given Progress Software’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Progress Software is more favorable than SAP.
Earnings & Valuation
This table compares SAP and Progress Software”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| SAP | $41.63 billion | 5.05 | $8.10 billion | $7.05 | 24.27 |
| Progress Software | $977.83 million | 1.22 | $73.13 million | $1.95 | 14.56 |
SAP has higher revenue and earnings than Progress Software. Progress Software is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than SAP, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
SAP beats Progress Software on 10 of the 12 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 Progress Software
Progress Software Corporation develops, deploys, and manages business applications in the United States and internationally. The company offers OpenEdge, an application development platform for running business-critical applications; Chef, a DevOps/DevSecOps automation software; Developer Tools that consists of software development tooling collection, including .NET and JavaScript UI components for web, desktop and mobile applications, reporting and report management tools, and automated testing and mocking tools; Kemp LoadMaster, an application delivery and security product offering cloud-native, and virtual and hardware load balancers; and Sitefinity, a digital experience platform foundation delivering intelligent and ROI-driving tools for marketers. It also provides MOVEit, a managed file transfer software for managing and controlling the movement of sensitive files and securing them both at-rest and in-transit; DataDirect, a secure data connectivity tools for Relational, NoSQL, Big Data and SaaS data sources; WhatsUp Gold, a network infrastructure monitoring software providing complete visibility of all network devices, servers, virtual machines, and cloud and wireless environments to find and fix network problems; Flowmon, a network security and visibility product with automated response across hybrid cloud ecosystems; Corticon, a decision automation platform to transform user experiences by streamlining and automating complex business rules; MarkLogic, a data agility platform to connect data and metadata; and Semaphore, a Semantic AI platform. The company offers project management, implementation, custom software development, programming, and other services, as well as web-enable applications; and training services. It sells its products to end users, independent software vendors, original equipment manufacturers, system integrators, value added resellers, and distributors. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.