Some of China's biggest dot-com darlings are getting even sweeter.
Shares of Baidu
Singling out China's market leaders in paid search and travel, respectively, Stifel Nicolas analyst George Askew has to know that he's not exactly trolling for bargains in the world's most populous nation.
Judging by his ambitious price targets of $144 for Baidu and $60 for Ctrip.com, he doesn't appear to be fazed by the conventionally stiff valuations here. After all, using Askew's targets would imply Ctrip.com fetching 46 times next year's projected profitability and Baidu checking in at 61 times next year's earnings.
Expensive or a vindicated bargain in retrospect?
Betting on Baidu
"Baidu is just getting started," I argued earlier this week.
Sure, the stock's been a 12-bagger since I recommended it to Motley Fool Rule Breakers newsletter subscribers four years ago. At its present valuation, it's unlikely to be a 12-bagger over the next four years for new investors.
However, despite the stiff earnings multiples, it's easy to see Baidu continuing to beat the market by a fair amount.
Askew points out that there are just 272,000 advertisers currently paying to generate leads through Baidu, less than 1% of the 40 million small- and medium-sized businesses that are potentially toiling away in China. As sponsors and consumers flock to China's leading search engine, the double-whammy of more generated leads at higher price points is a slam-dunk.
Baidu CEO Robin Li also offered up an interesting nugget during his stateside presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit this week: Google
Baidu was right to refuse outsider advances given the past five years of spectacular growth. Why bail on the company before the next five years play themselves out? Baidu closed last night at 45 times forward earnings. It seems high, but the stock was fetching 51 times the following year's projected earnings when I originally recommended the stock to Rule Breakers members.
It wasn't expensive. It was a vindicated bargain in retrospect.
Ctrip.com on A-list
Ctrip.com is another Chinese dot-com darling that has never seemed cheap at first glance.
When Motley Fool co-founder Tom Gardner recommended China's top travel website to Motley Fool Hidden Gems subscribers five years ago, it also came at a seemingly lofty valuation.
The stiff multiples didn't faze Tom. He wrote that he could see the shares tripling by the end of 2010. He was wrong. Ctrip.com has gone on to more than quintuple!
Riding the same wave of growing Internet penetration and a rapidly growing middle class, Ctrip remains the travel site of choice when Web-savvy Chinese users want to book travel plans.
Ctrip.com has become so ubiquitous that investors flocked to India's MakeMyTrip
Investors could have still doubled their money by going for the cheaper value play in smaller rival eLong
Ctrip wasn't expensive five years ago. It was a vindicated bargain in retrospect.
One more question to Askew
Cynics will argue that sales growth has decelerated at both Baidu and Ctrip. Askew sees Baidu's revenue growing at a 37% clip over the next five years, with Ctrip checking in at a 33% annualized growth rate over the next three years.
These are scalable models, so earnings will likely continue to grow considerably faster than those top-line targets. Stock gains over the next few years may not match the past few years, but it's not inconceivable that I can raise this exact same valuation argument in a few years when both companies handily beat the market and vindicate Askew's ratings.
So I have to ask: Is expensive the new cheap?
Do you think Baidu or Ctrip are good buys at this point? Share your thoughts in the comments box below.
