Analyzing United Microelectronics (NYSE:UMC) & Astera Labs (NASDAQ:ALAB)

United Microelectronics (NYSE:UMC) and Astera Labs (NASDAQ:ALAB) are both large-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for United Microelectronics and Astera Labs, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
United Microelectronics	1	3	0	0	1.75
Astera Labs	0	1	11	1	3.00

United Microelectronics presently has a consensus target price of $7.40, suggesting a potential upside of 22.62%. Astera Labs has a consensus target price of $107.42, suggesting a potential upside of 6.05%. Given United Microelectronics’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe United Microelectronics is more favorable than Astera Labs.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

5.1% of United Microelectronics shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 60.5% of Astera Labs shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.0% of United Microelectronics shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares United Microelectronics and Astera Labs”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
United Microelectronics	$7.09 billion	2.13	$1.44 billion	$0.58	10.41
Astera Labs	$115.79 million	138.75	-$26.26 million	N/A	N/A

United Microelectronics has higher revenue and earnings than Astera Labs.

Profitability

This table compares United Microelectronics and Astera Labs’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
United Microelectronics	20.35%	12.78%	8.16%
Astera Labs	-30.69%	-15.57%	-12.87%

Summary

United Microelectronics beats Astera Labs on 7 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About United Microelectronics

United Microelectronics Corporation operates as a semiconductor wafer foundry in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the United States, Europe, and internationally. The company provides circuit design, mask tooling, wafer fabrication, and assembly and testing services. It serves fabless design companies and integrated device manufacturers. United Microelectronics Corporation was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Hsinchu City, Taiwan.

About Astera Labs

Astera Labs, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for cloud and AI infrastructure. Its Intelligent Connectivity Platform is comprised of a portfolio of data, network, and memory connectivity products, which are built on a unifying software-defined architecture that enables customers to deploy and operate high performance cloud and AI infrastructure at scale. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is based in Santa Clara, California.