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Shareholders might have noticed that nLIGHT, Inc. (NASDAQ:LASR) filed its full-year result this time last week. The early response was not positive, with shares down 8.6% to US$9.17 in the past week. The statutory results were not great - while revenues of US$199m were in line with expectations,nLIGHT lost US$1.27 a share in the process. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what the analysts are expecting for next year.
See our latest analysis for nLIGHT
Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from nLIGHT's eight analysts is for revenues of US$209.9m in 2025. This reflects a reasonable 5.7% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Losses are supposed to decline, shrinking 19% from last year to US$1.02. Before this earnings announcement, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$206.8m and losses of US$0.98 per share in 2025. Overall it looks as though the analysts were a bit mixed on the latest consensus updates. Although revenue forecasts held steady, the consensus also made a pronounced increase to its losses per share forecasts.
As a result, there was no major change to the consensus price target of US$14.67, with the analysts implicitly confirming that the business looks to be performing in line with expectations, despite higher forecast losses. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. Currently, the most bullish analyst values nLIGHT at US$20.00 per share, while the most bearish prices it at US$11.00. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the business.
One way to get more context on these forecasts is to look at how they compare to both past performance, and how other companies in the same industry are performing. The analysts are definitely expecting nLIGHT's growth to accelerate, with the forecast 5.7% annualised growth to the end of 2025 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 0.09% per annum over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 7.3% per year. It seems obvious that, while the future growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, nLIGHT is expected to grow slower than the wider industry.