The Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price climbed 5.8% higher yesterday to hit a new 52-week high of $27.76 per share. Has the growth ship sailed, or is there still time to buy one of the hottest ASX tech stocks?
Why the Appen share price has soared this year
The Appen share price has continued to skyrocket in the early part of 2019, including a 20% surge following the company's February 2019 half-year results.
The company posted strong earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $71.3 million, which has largely been driven by demand for natural language and speech processing capabilities.
Appen's business model has continued to capitalise on the ever-growing global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and improved business analytics training capabilities from companies looking to enhance their performance.
The company's results indicated strong margin and volume growth, while it also benefitted from the continued softening of the Aussie dollar against its US counterpart (where Appen has a significant revenue base).
Is there still time to buy Appen shares?
Given Appen hit yet another 52-week high as at yesterday's close, you can't blame investors for wondering when the Appen growth train will come to a grinding halt.
However, so far this year Appen has proven to be an outperformer in what reminds me of the incredible bullish run we have seen with the Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (ASX: APT) share price in the last 18–24 months.
In terms of demand, there doesn't seem to be any kind of slowdown for AI and enhanced business analytics, which bodes well for Appen's short-to-medium-term growth prospects.
While the high price-to-earnings (P/E) multiples that companies such as Appen and Afterpay trade on can make investors wary of overvaluation, I think the real value of these companies will be the wealth of data that they are able to collect, which can be used in a variety of ways in the future.
Overall, I think the Appen share price has more room to grow and I would expect traders to push the share price even higher after hitting its new 52-week high of $27.76 per share in yesterday's trade.
