What is EPS?
EPS stands for Earnings Per Share. Imagine a company is like a pizza. EPS is like how many slices of profit each person (shareholder) gets after all the costs of making the pizza are paid. It tells you how much money the company makes for each share of stock someone owns.
What is REVENUE?
Revenue is like the total amount of money a store makes from selling things. Imagine a toy store. The revenue is all the money they get from selling toys, before they pay for rent, employee salaries, or the cost of the toys themselves. It's the total amount of money coming in.
Key Differences
- What they measure: Revenue measures how much a company sells. EPS measures how much profit a company makes per share after all the bills are paid.
- What they tell you: Revenue tells you how popular a company's products are. EPS tells you how profitable a company is for its owners.
- How easy they are to understand: Revenue is super easy to understand. It's just the total sales. EPS is a little harder because it involves dividing profit by the number of shares.
- What they don't tell you: Revenue doesn't tell you if a company is actually making money or losing money. EPS can be affected by accounting tricks, so it's not always a perfect measure of profitability.
When to Use Each One
Let's say you're trying to decide which company to invest in. If you want to see which company is selling more stuff, you'd look at revenue. For example, if Apple's revenue is higher than Samsung's, it means they sold more iPhones and iPads. However, if you want to know which company is making more money for each share of stock, you'd look at EPS. A higher EPS means the company is more profitable for its owners. So, if Apple's EPS is higher, it means they're making more money per share than Samsung.
The Bottom Line
Revenue is a good starting point to see how much a company is selling. But EPS is more important because it tells you how much money the company is really making for each share of stock. If you want to know if a company is a good investment, look at both, but pay close attention to EPS!