Lumen Technologies Inc vs Zscaler Inc — how do they compare? Lumen Technologies Inc trades at $6.67 (market cap $6.47B), while Zscaler Inc trades at $148.34 (market cap $24.23B). The key difference: Zscaler Inc is far larger — about 3.7× Lumen Technologies Inc's market cap, and Lumen Technologies Inc is trading nearer its 52-week high, Zscaler Inc nearer its low. Which is the better fit depends on your goals.
| LUMN | ZS | |
|---|---|---|
Market Cap | $6.47B | $24.23B |
Sector | Media | Technology |
52-Week High | $11.83 | $336.27 |
52-Week Low | $3.70 | $118.05 |
Enterprise Value | $18.10B | $22.55B |
Signals from Pluang's Aura AI — not financial advice
LUMN trades at $6.275, down 0.08% on the day, with a bearish technical signal but oversold RSI readings. The company reported a net loss of $1.74B in 2025 despite beating EPS estimates in two of the last three quarters. Recent news highlights strategic acquisitions like Alkira to bolster its AI networking capabilities, while the balance sheet shows high debt levels of $17.49B long-term.
The outlook remains challenging due to persistent losses and heavy debt, though cost-cutting initiatives and a $13B contract backlog offer potential upside. Analyst consensus is cautious with a $8.25 price target, but the stock's deep value (P/S 0.52) may attract contrarians if EBITDA improves. Key risks include execution on turnaround plans and interest expense pressure.
Zscaler (ZS) trades at $150.70, up 0.54% with a bullish technical outlook. The stock shows strong revenue growth from $1.1B in 2022 to $2.67B in 2025, though remains unprofitable with a -2.44% net margin. Recent earnings consistently beat expectations, and analyst consensus is strongly bullish with a $192.46 price target. However, the company faces class action investigations and rising AI infrastructure costs that pressure margins.
ZS presents a growth opportunity in cybersecurity with Zero Trust adoption and AI security traction, but investors must weigh persistent losses against high valuation multiples. The stock's 34% YTD decline creates potential upside if execution improves, though competitive pressures and profitability concerns remain key risks.
Trailing returns across standard periods
With 450,000 route miles of fiber, including over 35,000 route miles of subsea fiber connecting Europe, Asia, and Latin America, Lumen Technologies is one of the United States' largest telecommunications carriers serving global enterprises. Its merger with Level 3 further shifted the company's operations toward businesses (over 70% of revenue) and away from its legacy consumer business. Lumen offers businesses a full menu of communications services, providing colocation and data center services, data transportation, and end-user phone and internet service. On the consumer side, Lumen provides broadband and phone service across 37 states, where it has 4.5 million broadband customers.
Read more on LUMN →Zscaler is a security-as-a-service firm that offers its customers cloud-delivered solutions for protecting user devices and data. The firm leverages its position in 150 colocation data centers to deliver traditionally appliance-based security functionality, such as firewalls and sandboxes, as a completely cloud-native platform. The firm focuses on large enterprise customers and offers two primary product suites: Zscaler Internet Access, which securely connects users to externally managed application and websites (such as Salesforce and Google), and Zscaler Private Access, which securely connects users to internally managed applications. Both product suites encompass a broad gamut of capabilities situated across the traditional security stack.
Read more on ZS →