Asset turnover measures how hard a company's assets work. Divide yearly revenue by total assets and you get the reading: a value of 0.8 times means each $1 of assets generates $0.80 of sales per year. Picture a coffee shop with $200,000 tied up in machines, fittings, and stock. If it rings up $300,000 in sales a year, its asset turnover is 1.5 times, so every dollar invested in the shop produced a dollar fifty of sales. If sales were only $100,000, turnover is 0.5 times, and the same equipment is sitting half idle.
There is no universally good number, because business models differ. A discount retailer runs high, near 3.5 times, since its assets exist to move goods fast. Apple sits near 1.1 times, using few assets and letting fat margins do the work. Utilities and telecoms fall below 0.5 times, because the business essentially is its enormous infrastructure.
So compare within a sector, and watch the trend: rising turnover with steady margins is one of the clearest signs a business is genuinely improving, squeezing more sales from the same asset base.
Balance-sheet items are averaged across the period (the beginning and ending values divided by 2 for yearly figures, or a rolling average across the most recent quarter-ends for quarterly ones) so the asset figure lines up with the revenue figure.