When close to half the companies in China have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 30x, you may consider Mango Excellent Media Co., Ltd. (SZSE:300413) as a highly attractive investment with its 11.9x P/E ratio. However, the P/E might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

Mango Excellent Media certainly has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing earnings more than most other companies. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think this strong earnings performance might be less impressive moving forward. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

What Are Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/E?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the market for P/E ratios like Mango Excellent Media's to be considered reasonable.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 82% last year. Pleasingly, EPS has also lifted 46% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Accordingly, shareholders would have probably welcomed those medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should bring diminished returns, with earnings decreasing 11% per year as estimated by the analysts watching the company. With the market predicted to deliver 25% growth each year, that's a disappointing outcome.

In light of this, it's understandable that Mango Excellent Media's P/E would sit below the majority of other companies. However, shrinking earnings are unlikely to lead to a stable P/E over the longer term. There's potential for the P/E to fall to even lower levels if the company doesn't improve its profitability.

What We Can Learn From Mango Excellent Media's P/E?

While the price-to-earnings ratio shouldn't be the defining factor in whether you buy a stock or not, it's quite a capable barometer of earnings expectations.

As we suspected, our examination of Mango Excellent Media's analyst forecasts revealed that its outlook for shrinking earnings is contributing to its low P/E. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 3 warning signs for Mango Excellent Media (2 shouldn't be ignored!) that we have uncovered.

Of course, you might also be able to find a better stock than Mango Excellent Media. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com