The majority of investors out there will be very familiar with growth shares such as Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd. (ASX: DMP) and Blackmores Limited (ASX: BKL).
These two have been on investors' radars for some time now and for good reason. Both Domino's and Blackmores have been producing stellar earnings growth for a number of years and have well and truly earned the right to be classed as market darlings.
But three growth shares which I feel are flying under the radar and are worth taking a closer look at are as follows:
Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ASX: API)
Australian Pharmaceutical Industries is the owner and operator of well known pharmacy brands Priceline, Soul Pattinson, and Pharmacist Advice. As well as operating these brands it also acts as a distributor to pharmacies up and down the country. The biggest attraction to the company in my opinion is the Priceline brand. Priceline has been growing its market share at a strong rate for some time and currently commands the number one spot in the skincare, cosmetics, and beauty accessories market. Management intends to open at least 20 new Priceline stores per year for the foreseeable future, further cementing its leading position. In the last five years it has grown earnings at an average of 11% per year, but for the next couple of years this is expected to rise to 22% per year according to CommSec.
Appen Ltd (ASX: APX)
Appen is a fantastic Australian technology company that I believe would be a great addition to almost all portfolios. The company is a market leader in the growing language technology and machine learning market, providing high quality data which is critical for automatic speech recognition. As well as being used by government security agencies, Appen counts the likes of Microsoft and Facebook amongst its growing client list. With analysts forecasting earnings to grow at an average of almost 19% per annum through to FY 2018, Appen is clearly a company on the rise in my view.
Praemium Ltd (ASX: PPS)
This exciting fintech company provides software platforms for investment administration, separately managed accounts, and financial planning. Praemium administers over 300,000 investor accounts covering approximately $80 billion in funds globally, and currently provides services to some of the world's largest financial institutions. If the solid rise of separately managed accounts is sustained, I believe Praemium's growth could prove to be explosive. At 59x trailing earnings its shares may look very expensive, but I feel very confident that its future earnings potential more than justifies the price.
