Head to Head Comparison: VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) and Zentek (NASDAQ:ZTEK)

Zentek (NASDAQ:ZTEK) and VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) are both small-cap technology companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, risk and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Zentek and VNET Group, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Zentek	1	0	0	0	1.00
VNET Group	1	1	4	0	2.50

VNET Group has a consensus price target of $16.90, indicating a potential upside of 229.39%. Given VNET Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe VNET Group is more favorable than Zentek.

Profitability

This table compares Zentek and VNET Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Zentek	-5,848.76%	-70.93%	-52.26%
VNET Group	-22.29%	-36.25%	-4.43%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Zentek and VNET Group”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Zentek	$108,251.00	575.49	-$7.07 million	($0.07)	-7.03
VNET Group	$1.42 billion	0.98	-$36.01 million	($1.42)	-3.61

Zentek has higher earnings, but lower revenue than VNET Group. Zentek is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than VNET Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.8% of Zentek shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 72.8% of VNET Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.1% of VNET Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Zentek has a beta of 0.4, suggesting that its stock price is 60% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, VNET Group has a beta of 0.23, suggesting that its stock price is 77% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

VNET Group beats Zentek on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Zentek

Zentek Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the research and development of graphene and related nanomaterials in Canada. The company develops graphene-based antimicrobial coating under the ZenGUARD brand, surgical masks, HVAC filters, personal protective equipment, rapid detection point of care diagnostics tests, and pharmaceutical products based on graphene-based compounds. It is also developing graphene oxide synthesis and graphene synthesis. In addition, the company owns 100% interest in the Albany graphite project located in Northern Ontario, Canada. The company was formerly known as ZEN Graphene Solutions Ltd. and changed its name to Zentek Ltd. in October 2021. Zentek Ltd. was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in Guelph, Canada.

About VNET Group

VNET Group, Inc., an investment holding company, provides hosting and related services in China. It offers managed hosting services consisting of managed retail services, such as colocation services that dedicate data center space to house customers' servers and networking equipment, as well as allow customers to lease partial or entire cabinets for their servers; interconnectivity services that allow customers to connect their servers; value-added services, including hybrid IT, bare metal, firewall, server load balancing, data backup and recovery, data center management, server management, and backup server services; cloud services that allow customers to run applications over the internet using IT infrastructure; and VPN Services that extend customers' private networks by setting up connections through the public internet. The company also provides server administration services, such as operating system support and assistance with updates, server monitoring, server backup and restoration, server security evaluation, firewall services, and disaster recovery services. It serves information technology and cloud services, communications and social networking, gaming and entertainment, e-commerce, automobile, financial services, and blue-chip and small-to-mid-sized enterprises; government agencies; individuals; and telecommunication carriers. The company was formerly known as 21Vianet Group, Inc. and changed its name to VNET Group, Inc. in October 2021. VNET Group, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.