Yahoo Finance Party Time: Brokers Just Made Major Increases To Their BlackBerry Limited (TSE:BB) Earnings Forecasts
BlackBerry Limited (TSE:BB) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. Consensus estimates suggest investors could expect greatly increased statutory revenues and earnings per share, with the analysts modelling a real improvement in business performance.
Following this upgrade, BlackBerry's nine analysts are forecasting 2024 revenues to be US$859m, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Losses are predicted to fall substantially, shrinking 82% to US$0.18. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$699m and US$0.20 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a sizeable increase to their revenue forecasts while also reducing the estimated loss as the business grows towards breakeven.
Check out our latest analysis for BlackBerry
It will come as no surprise to learn that the analysts have increased their price target for BlackBerry 5.1% to US$4.71 on the back of these upgrades. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic BlackBerry analyst has a price target of US$6.48 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$6.03. Even so, with a relatively close grouping of estimates, it looks like the analysts are quite confident in their valuations, suggesting BlackBerry is an easy business to forecast or the underlying assumptions are obvious.
These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the BlackBerry's past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would also point out that the forecast 0.3% annualised revenue decline to the end of 2024 is better than the historical trend, which saw revenues shrink 6.2% annually over the past five years By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 16% per year. So while a broad number of companies are forecast to grow, unfortunately BlackBerry is expected to see its sales affected worse than other companies in the industry.
The Bottom Line
The highlight for us was that the consensus reduced its estimated losses this year, perhaps suggesting BlackBerry is moving incrementally towards profitability. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow slower than the wider market. Given that the consensus looks almost universally bullish, with a substantial increase to forecasts and a higher price target, BlackBerry could be worth investigating further.
Still, the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. We have estimates - from multiple BlackBerry analysts - going out to 2026, and you can see them free on our platform here.
Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are upgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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