When close to half the companies operating in the Media industry in Hong Kong have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") above 0.9x, you may consider Meta Media Holdings Limited (HKG:72) as an attractive investment with its 0.2x P/S ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the reduced P/S.

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View our latest analysis for Meta Media Holdings

How Meta Media Holdings Has Been Performing

For instance, Meta Media Holdings' receding revenue in recent times would have to be some food for thought. Perhaps the market believes the recent revenue performance isn't good enough to keep up the industry, causing the P/S ratio to suffer. 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.

Although there are no analyst estimates available for Meta Media Holdings, take a look at this free data-rich visualisation to see how the company stacks up on earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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

In order to justify its P/S ratio, Meta Media Holdings would need to produce sluggish growth that's trailing the industry.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 5.4% decrease to the company's top line. The last three years don't look nice either as the company has shrunk revenue by 15% in aggregate. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of revenue growth.

In contrast to the company, the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 7.2% over the next year, which really puts the company's recent medium-term revenue decline into perspective.

With this in mind, we understand why Meta Media Holdings' P/S is lower than most of its industry peers. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/S has reached a floor yet with revenue going in reverse. There's potential for the P/S to fall to even lower levels if the company doesn't improve its top-line growth.

The Bottom Line On Meta Media Holdings' P/S

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.

It's no surprise that Meta Media Holdings maintains its low P/S off the back of its sliding revenue over the medium-term. Right now shareholders are accepting the low P/S as they concede future revenue probably won't provide any pleasant surprises either. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

It is also worth noting that we have found 3 warning signs for Meta Media Holdings (1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) that you need to take into consideration.

If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on Meta Media Holdings, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.

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