Could some of the hottest ASX tech shares be a buy right now?
Let’s have a look at some of the leading names:
Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT)
The Afterpay share price has risen by 88% over the past six months.
Afterpay shares have been going nuts since the March 2020 crash. It’s true that underlying sales have soared. In November, it made $2.1 billion of monthly underlying sales, more than doubling the $1 billion of underlying sales in November 2019. This was an increase of 112%. Australia and New Zealand underlying sales went up 54% to $0.9 billion, while US underlying sales went up by 186% to $1 billion and UK underlying sales grew by 315% to $0.2 billion.
But is a market capitalisation of around $40 billion justified? I can mostly understand why highly profitable businesses keep going up in this environment. Using traditional valuation techniques, when interest rates are this low it justifiably makes businesses growing profit quickly worth a lot. But we’re now halfway into FY21 and Afterpay still doesn’t seem too close to making a lot of profit after years of growth.
The listing of Affirm in the US seems have to created even more hype, rather than a realisation that there’s a lot of competition out there for Afterpay.
Even at a share price of $70, Afterpay would be extremely expensive in my eyes. But how can you argue when it just keeps going up and up?
Afterpay shares are not for me.
WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC)
The WiseTech share price has risen by 41% over the past six months.
WiseTech has had a high price/earnings ratio for a long time. Some businesses can be worth a high multiple because of their profit growth, or perhaps they have a great balance sheet, or perhaps they have an extremely high client retention, or perhaps they have a very long growth runway.
This ASX tech share probably ticks some of those boxes. Its core shipping software has high retention rates, it’s growing its market share of a huge industry and shipping is going to remain important for a very long time.
FY20 was another solid year for WiseTech, with total revenue growth of 23%, an increase of recurring revenue to 89%, EBITDA (EBITDA explained) going up 17% and operating cashflow rising 16%.
Despite all of the furore in recent history about acquisitions, I think WiseTech is a good business. But at 61 times the estimated earnings for the 2023 financial year (according to CommSec projections), I don’t believe WiseTech represents good value.
Xero Limited (ASX: XRO)
The Xero share price has risen by 42% over the past six months.
Despite Xero’s client base being made up of small and medium businesses, it has done well during the difficult last 12 months. In the recent FY21 half year result, operating revenue went up by 21% to NZ$410 million, total subscribers rose by 19% to 2.45 million, and EBITDA went up by 86% to NZ$120.7 million. Net profit after tax (NPAT) grew from NZ$1.3 million to NZ$34.5 million and free cash flow grew from NZ$4.8 million to NZ$54.3 million.
That result showed the type of profit growth Xero can produce when it’s not re-investing heavily for growth every year. The underlying Xero business is very profitable, with a very high gross margin.
It continues to gain market share in Australia, the UK and New Zealand. If I held Xero shares, I’d want to keep holding them for a long time to come.
But the market knows how good Xero is, that’s why its share price is now above $136. Using CommSec projections, it’s valued at 122 times the estimated earnings for the 2023 financial year.
Xero is the ASX tech share I’d want to own out of the three in this article, but it also seems very pricey.
There are other ASX growth shares that I think look much more reasonable buys than the above three, like Pushpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: PPH) and even Altium Limited (ASX: ALU).
