Investors not giving Alphabet enough credit for growth outlook: Barron's

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors are not giving Alphabet Inc sufficient credit for its growth outlook and franchise value, as the tech company could see profits expand 15 to 20 percent annually over the next three years, Barron's said in an article on Sunday.

Shares in the parent company of Google look inexpensive trading at 25 times projected 2018 earnings of about $42 a share, Barron's said. While that's a premium to the Standard & Poor's 500 index, which fetches around 16 times estimated 2018 earnings, Alphabet's growth stands apart given its large revenue base of $111 billion.

Over 86 percent of its revenue comes from advertising, much of which is tied to search queries. That market is likely to keep growing as more ad spending shifts online, it said.

Alphabet is also in a better position than Facebook Inc on data privacy, has better growth prospects than Apple Inc, has a lower valuation than Microsoft Corp and a fraction of the price-earnings ratio to Amazon Inc, making it a strong contender in the Big Tech stocks, Barron's added.

Alpha's stock price ended Friday at $1109.95 a share.

(Reporting by Catherine Ngai; Editing by David Gregorio)