Hypebeast Limited (HKG:150) shareholders would be excited to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a 26% gain and recovering from prior weakness. Not all shareholders will be feeling jubilant, since the share price is still down a very disappointing 22% in the last twelve months.

Even after such a large jump in price, you could still be forgiven for feeling indifferent about Hypebeast's P/S ratio of 0.5x, since the median price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio for the Interactive Media and Services industry in Hong Kong is also close to 0.7x. While this might not raise any eyebrows, if the P/S ratio is not justified investors could be missing out on a potential opportunity or ignoring looming disappointment.

What Does Hypebeast's P/S Mean For Shareholders?

Hypebeast has been doing a decent job lately as it's been growing revenue at a reasonable pace. One possibility is that the P/S is moderate because investors think this good revenue growth might only be parallel to the broader industry in the near future. Those who are bullish on Hypebeast will be hoping that this isn't the case, so that they can pick up the stock at a lower valuation.

What Are Revenue Growth Metrics Telling Us About The P/S?

In order to justify its P/S ratio, Hypebeast would need to produce growth that's similar to the industry.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a decent 5.0% gain to the company's revenues. This was backed up an excellent period prior to see revenue up by 49% in total over the last three years. Accordingly, shareholders would have definitely welcomed those medium-term rates of revenue growth.

Comparing that to the industry, which is only predicted to deliver 10% growth in the next 12 months, the company's momentum is stronger based on recent medium-term annualised revenue results.

With this information, we find it interesting that Hypebeast is trading at a fairly similar P/S compared to the industry. It may be that most investors are not convinced the company can maintain its recent growth rates.

The Bottom Line On Hypebeast's P/S

Hypebeast's stock has a lot of momentum behind it lately, which has brought its P/S level with the rest of the industry. While the price-to-sales ratio shouldn't be the defining factor in whether you buy a stock or not, it's quite a capable barometer of revenue expectations.

To our surprise, Hypebeast revealed its three-year revenue trends aren't contributing to its P/S as much as we would have predicted, given they look better than current industry expectations. When we see strong revenue with faster-than-industry growth, we can only assume potential risks are what might be placing pressure on the P/S ratio. While recent revenue trends over the past medium-term suggest that the risk of a price decline is low, investors appear to see the likelihood of revenue fluctuations in the future.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 3 warning signs for Hypebeast (2 are concerning!) that we have uncovered.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. 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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