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It's been a good week for Experian plc (LON:EXPN) shareholders, because the company has just released its latest full-year results, and the shares gained 2.2% to UK£27.17. It looks like the results were a bit of a negative overall. While revenues of US$5.4b were in line with analyst predictions, statutory earnings were less than expected, missing estimates by 3.5% to hit US$0.88 per share. Earnings are an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance, look at what the analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there's been a change in sentiment towards the company. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.
See our latest analysis for Experian
Taking into account the latest results, the most recent consensus for Experian from 14 analysts is for revenues of US$5.86b in 2022 which, if met, would be a notable 9.2% increase on its sales over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to soar 21% to US$1.06. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$5.80b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$1.07 in 2022. So it's pretty clear that, although the analysts have updated their estimates, there's been no major change in expectations for the business following the latest results.
The analysts reconfirmed their price target of US$42.27, showing that the business is executing well and in line with expectations. Fixating on a single price target can be unwise though, since the consensus target is effectively the average of analyst price targets. As a result, some investors like to look at the range of estimates to see if there are any diverging opinions on the company's valuation. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Experian at US$37.48 per share, while the most bearish prices it at US$18.26. These price targets show that analysts do have some differing views on the business, but the estimates do not vary enough to suggest to us that some are betting on wild success or utter failure.
Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. The analysts are definitely expecting Experian's growth to accelerate, with the forecast 9.2% annualised growth to the end of 2022 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 5.3% 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 6.7% per year. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Experian is expected to grow much faster than its industry.