Critical Review: Maplebear (CART) and Its Peers

Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART) is one of 193 publicly-traded companies in the “Business services, not elsewhere classified” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Maplebear to related companies based on the strength of its earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability and risk.

Risk & Volatility

Maplebear has a beta of 0.94, suggesting that its stock price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Maplebear’s competitors have a beta of 1.51, suggesting that their average stock price is 51% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Maplebear and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Maplebear	13.37%	13.78%	10.51%
Maplebear Competitors	-15.31%	-159.06%	-4.11%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Maplebear and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Maplebear	0	13	13	0	2.50
Maplebear Competitors	921	6007	12342	320	2.62

Maplebear presently has a consensus price target of $46.82, suggesting a potential upside of 7.14%. As a group, “Business services, not elsewhere classified” companies have a potential upside of 4.09%. Given Maplebear’s higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Maplebear is more favorable than its competitors.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Maplebear and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Maplebear	$3.04 billion	-$1.62 billion	29.33
Maplebear Competitors	$4.07 billion	$456.28 million	9.15

Maplebear’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Maplebear. Maplebear is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

63.1% of Maplebear shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 58.1% of shares of all “Business services, not elsewhere classified” companies are owned by institutional investors. 36.0% of Maplebear shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.0% of shares of all “Business services, not elsewhere classified” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Maplebear beats its competitors on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

Maplebear Company Profile

Maplebear Inc., doing business as Instacart, engages in the provision of online grocery shopping services to households in North America. It sells and delivers grocery products, as well as pickup services through a mobile application and website. It also operates virtual convenience stores; and provides software-as-a-service solutions to retailers. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, California.