Afya (NASDAQ:AFYA – Get Free Report) and Duolingo (NASDAQ:DUOL – Get Free Report) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability, earnings and institutional ownership.
Profitability
This table compares Afya and Duolingo’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Afya | 20.55% | 17.58% | 9.09% |
| Duolingo | 35.88% | 12.10% | 8.24% |
Insider & Institutional Ownership
88.0% of Afya shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.6% of Duolingo shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.8% of Afya shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.6% of Duolingo shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Valuation and Earnings
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Afya | $662.01 million | 1.84 | $134.77 million | $1.64 | 7.93 |
| Duolingo | $1.04 billion | 6.47 | $414.07 million | $8.44 | 17.00 |
Duolingo has higher revenue and earnings than Afya. Afya is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Duolingo, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Afya and Duolingo, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Afya | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 2.00 |
| Duolingo | 1 | 14 | 8 | 1 | 2.38 |
Afya presently has a consensus target price of $17.75, suggesting a potential upside of 36.54%. Duolingo has a consensus target price of $124.38, suggesting a potential downside of 13.33%. Given Afya’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Afya is more favorable than Duolingo.
Risk and Volatility
Afya has a beta of 0.35, meaning that its stock price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Duolingo has a beta of 0.89, meaning that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Duolingo beats Afya on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Afya
Afya Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as a medical education group in Brazil. The company operates through three segments: Undergrad, Continuing Education, and Digital Services. It offers educational products and services, including medical schools, medical residency preparatory courses, graduate courses, and other programs to lifelong medical learners enrolled across its distribution network, as well as to third-party medical schools. The company also provides digital health services, such as subscription-based mobile app and website portal that focuses on assisting health professionals and students with clinical decision-making through tools, such as medical calculators, charts, and updated content, as well as prescriptions, clinical scores, medical procedures and laboratory exams, and others. It offers health sciences courses, which comprise medicine, dentistry, nursing, radiology, psychology, pharmacy, physical education, physiotherapy, nutrition, and biomedicine; and degree programs and courses in other subjects and disciplines, including undergraduate and post graduate courses in business administration, accounting, law, civil engineering, industrial engineering, and pedagogy. In addition, the company provides medical postgraduate specialization programs; printed and digital content; and an online medical education platform and practical medical training services. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Nova Lima, Brazil.
About Duolingo
Duolingo, Inc. operates as a mobile learning platform in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company offers courses in 40 different languages, including Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese through its Duolingo app. It also provides a digital English language proficiency assessment exam. Duolingo, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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