Pinming Technology Co., Ltd. (SHSE:688109) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 32% in the last month, although it is still struggling to make up recently lost ground. Longer-term shareholders would be thankful for the recovery in the share price since it's now virtually flat for the year after the recent bounce.

Although its price has surged higher, you could still be forgiven for feeling indifferent about Pinming Technology's P/S ratio of 4.5x, since the median price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio for the Software industry in China is also close to 5.2x. Although, it's not wise to simply ignore the P/S without explanation as investors may be disregarding a distinct opportunity or a costly mistake.

What Does Pinming Technology's P/S Mean For Shareholders?

It looks like revenue growth has deserted Pinming Technology recently, which is not something to boast about. It might be that many expect the uninspiring revenue performance to only match most other companies at best over the coming period, which has kept the P/S from rising. If not, then existing shareholders may be feeling hopeful about the future direction of the share price.

How Is Pinming Technology's Revenue Growth Trending?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should be matching the industry for P/S ratios like Pinming Technology's to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered virtually the same number to the company's top line as the year before. Fortunately, a few good years before that means that it was still able to grow revenue by 15% in total over the last three years. So it appears to us that the company has had a mixed result in terms of growing revenue over that time.

Comparing that to the industry, which is predicted to deliver 31% growth in the next 12 months, the company's momentum is weaker, based on recent medium-term annualised revenue results.

With this information, we find it interesting that Pinming Technology is trading at a fairly similar P/S compared to the industry. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly limited recent growth rates and are willing to pay up for exposure to the stock. They may be setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/S falls to levels more in line with recent growth rates.

The Final Word

Its shares have lifted substantially and now Pinming Technology's P/S is back within range of the industry median. It's argued the price-to-sales ratio is an inferior measure of value within certain industries, but it can be a powerful business sentiment indicator.

We've established that Pinming Technology's average P/S is a bit surprising since its recent three-year growth is lower than the wider industry forecast. When we see weak revenue with slower than industry growth, we suspect the share price is at risk of declining, bringing the P/S back in line with expectations. If recent medium-term revenue trends continue, the probability of a share price decline will become quite substantial, placing shareholders at risk.

Don't forget that there may be other risks. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for Pinming Technology that you should be aware of.

If companies with solid past earnings growth is up your alley, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.

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