Meta Platforms And Tencent: A Comparison Of 2 Tech Powerhouses

Summary

• Both META and TCEHY present an attractive long-term investment opportunity.
• META suffered a 75% drop in value from its peak to trough.
• TCEHY has declined over 50% from its all-time highs.
• Both META and TCEHY are investing billions of dollars to take advantage of the artificial intelligence and metaverse markets.

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In this article I will provide a look into Meta Platforms (META) from the United States and Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) from China from a purely fundamental perspective. To begin, I believe that both companies are significantly undervalued and present a long-term investment opportunity, based on fundamentals and their expected role in markets such as artificial intelligence and the metaverse. I will provide a thorough analysis of each of these companies in future articles but for now I want to set the scene.

Please find below a comparison of the companies´ financial metrics during the trailing twelve months:

TTM Financial Highlights META & TCEHY (Seeking Alpha)

Two other metrics I believe important to take a look at are, R&D spend and share buybacks. These two metrics give us an idea of how much cash these companies are investing in innovation and their platforms as well as how much they are spending to repurchase their common stock and decrease the number of shares outstanding in the open market. Important to note here as well that both META and TCEHY have seen their market valuation plummet over 70% and 50%, respectively, as such buying back their common stock does make a lot of sense.

R&D and Share Buybacks Highlights (Seeking Alpha & 10-k)

Examining META and TCEHY Fundamentals and Growth Strategies:

META

META suffered a 75% decrease from its peak at $1 trillion (new $1 trillion) on Nov. 2020 to its trough at $240 billion just a few weeks back. META has seen its value decrease due to the current market environment, margins decrease and the uncertainty around the company´s AI and metaverse strategies. As a result of these strategies, shareholders have seen capital expenditures and R&D expenses grow dramatically. For reference, R&D expenses during 2020 amounted to $18.4 billion, while in the TTM R&D expenses have ballooned to $32.4 billion. Nonetheless, META has performed extremely well compared to its valuation. The company had a TTM cash flow from operations of $54bn pushing down its price to cash flow below 6x. This is a low multiple when you see the potential META has of producing similar results during the next years.

Meta Revenue, Profits, and R&D comparison (pragmaticengineer.com)

It is also important to highlight that META has been buying its own common stock quite aggressively. During the last twelve months, META spent $46 billion in share buybacks. Unfortunately for shareholders, a large portion of these share buybacks were made when the share price was still above $300. Nonetheless, due to its strong fundamentals which are bolstered by high cash balances at $41 billion, low debt and a truly robust cash flow from operations coupled with a low market capitalization, META could easily buy 10% off its outstanding shares on a yearly basis, at current prices. This is a truly fantastic opportunity very few companies have. Looking at the potential opportunities META has for the future, there are two markets which META will definitely make a play for. The first one is no surprise, the metaverse. There are estimates that the metaverse market could be worth up to $1.5 trillion by 2030. Further to this, META also has the possibility to enter the AI market which is expected to grow over $400 billion by 2028.

META is burning a lot of its cash to pursue these opportunities, and this has made investors wary, but we should not forget that the first mover will have the opportunity to take a big portion of these markets. Finally, these markets also offer a way to diversify revenues, as META generates a high percentage of its revenues through Ads. The company will have to keep investing in R&D and Capex to a similar tune during the coming years, this is a big risk, but the rewards could be even bigger.

TCEHY

TCEHY is a true behemoth from China, being the largest gaming and social media company in the country. To understand the scale of TCEHY, we could simply take a look at the monthly active users from its famous social media platform WeChat, which surpassed the 1.3 billion mark during 2022.TCEHY has strong fundamentals with opportunities in a diverse range of markets which give the company a nice runway of growth for the future. With TTM revenues of $78 billion and cash flow from operations of $22 billion, TCEHY has been able to generate a free cash flow of $19 billion during the previous twelve months. The market is valuing the company at $403bn, which is below 6x times revenues and about 18x cash flow from operations. Looking at the opportunities of the future, these are somewhat low multiples, let´s take deeper look at TCEHY segments. Similar to Alibaba (BABA) and Baidu (BIDU), TCEHY is a prominent player in the cloud market in China with the third largest market share in the country behind BABA and Huawei. Meaning this is a market TCEHY is already well positioned in and which has the potential to grow in China alone to $84 billion by 2028.

China Cloud Players (Canalys)

Besides TCEHY leading positions in the gaming and social media markets, it is also well position in the Fintech realm with WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet, which allow users to make online and offline payments, transfer money, and pay bills. Furthermore, TCEHY is also making a play in the AI market, with the company pledging $70 billion over the next five years for investments in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc. TCEHY has a resilient business which has gone through a tough economic environment full of penalties and restrictions imposed by Chinese regulators. The company has a strong balance sheet with $41bn in cash coupled with $75bn in stakes of different companies. Even though the company has a net debt position of $10bn, it could easily cover this with its extensive free cash flow generation.

Risks:

Competition: Both META and TCEHY operate in highly competitive environments, in many cases they are competing among each other, be it in social media platforms, artificial intelligence, the metaverse, etc. There are also other large and well-established companies vying for market share in all these markets, as such they will face increased competition from both domestic and international players.

Regulatory risks: Given these companies participate in many countries, they are subject to several regulations in their domestic markets as well as abroad. As it has been seen throughout the years, fines by regulating entities are not a rare occasion. Some examples to point out are the fines delivered Tencent in China or to Meta in the USA. Increased regulatory scrutiny will certainly impact both of these companies at some point and this could have negative consequences for their financial performance.

Cybersecurity risks: META and TCEHY handle large amounts of sensitive data, they are potential targets for threats such as data breaches and cyber-attacks. Cybersecurity will play an important role in the future, making it a necessity for these companies to protect the security of their systems and data. As we all know, failure to protect customer data has serious reputational consequences.

Bottom Line:

In this article I wanted to present the readers with the opportunity to take a look at the broader picture and display how the markets are valuing these tech giants which on many occasions are competing in the same spaces. There are of course many more risks in China than in the United States, no can argue with that. However, this should not abstain us from looking at the bigger picture. Both META and TCEHY are well positioned in markets which are poised to grow exponentially during the next years. To name a few, we have the cloud market, the AI market, the metaverse, among others. As mentioned previously I will perform a thorough analysis on these companies, but I wanted to give a preview on the fundamentals, potential markets, risks, etc. I hope you enjoyed the read.

Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.

Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.