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Investors in The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) had a good week, as its shares rose 3.8% to close at US$10.18 following the release of its first-quarter results. Revenues of US$984m were in line with forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) came in below expectations at US$0.36, missing estimates by 4.0%. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.
Following last week's earnings report, Western Union's 16 analysts are forecasting 2025 revenues to be US$4.14b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are forecast to nosedive 42% to US$1.62 in the same period. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$4.15b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$1.66 in 2025. The analysts seem to have become a little more negative on the business after the latest results, given the small dip in their earnings per share numbers for next year.
See our latest analysis for Western Union
The consensus price target held steady at US$11.43, with the analysts seemingly voting that their lower forecast earnings are not expected to lead to a lower stock price in the foreseeable future. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. The most optimistic Western Union analyst has a price target of US$17.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$9.00. Note the wide gap in analyst price targets? This implies to us that there is a fairly broad range of possible scenarios for the underlying 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. We would also point out that the forecast 0.2% annualised revenue decline to the end of 2025 is better than the historical trend, which saw revenues shrink 4.3% 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 3.7% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while it does have declining revenues, the analysts also expect Western Union to suffer worse than the wider industry.