Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control Co., Ltd. (SHSE:600560) shares have had a really impressive month, gaining 38% after a shaky period beforehand. The last 30 days bring the annual gain to a very sharp 66%.

After such a large jump in price, when almost half of the companies in China's Electrical industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 2.3x, you may consider Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control as a stock not worth researching with its 4.5x P/S ratio. However, the P/S might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

What Does Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control's P/S Mean For Shareholders?

Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control certainly has been doing a great job lately as it's been growing its revenue at a really rapid pace. Perhaps the market is expecting future revenue performance to outperform the wider market, which has seemingly got people interested in the stock. However, if this isn't the case, investors might get caught out paying too much for the stock.

How Is Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control's Revenue Growth Trending?

Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control's P/S ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver very strong growth, and importantly, perform much better than the industry.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew revenue by an impressive 43% last year. As a result, it also grew revenue by 23% in total over the last three years. So we can start by confirming that the company has actually done a good job of growing revenue over that time.

This is in contrast to the rest of the industry, which is expected to grow by 22% over the next year, materially higher than the company's recent medium-term annualised growth rates.

In light of this, it's alarming that Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control's P/S sits above the majority of other companies. Apparently many investors in the company are way more bullish than recent times would indicate and aren't willing to let go of their stock at any price. There's a good chance existing shareholders are setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/S falls to levels more in line with recent growth rates.

What We Can Learn From Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control's P/S?

The strong share price surge has lead to Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control's P/S soaring as well. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

The fact that Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control currently trades on a higher P/S relative to the industry is an oddity, since its recent three-year growth is lower than the wider industry forecast. Right now we aren't comfortable with the high P/S as this revenue performance isn't likely to support such positive sentiment for long. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve markedly, it's very challenging to accept these the share price as being reasonable.

And what about other risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Beijing AriTime Intelligent Control you should know about.

If strong companies turning a profit tickle your fancy, then you'll want to check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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