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There's been a major selloff in Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE) shares in the week since it released its quarterly report, with the stock down 23% to US$12.64. It looks like weak result overall, with ongoing losses and revenues of US$200m falling short of analyst predictions. The losses were a relative bright spot though, with a per-share (statutory) loss of US$0.09 being 56% smaller than what the analysts had presumed. The analysts typically update their forecasts at each earnings report, and we can judge from their estimates whether their view of the company has changed or if there are any new concerns to be aware of. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Bloom Energy after the latest results.
View our latest analysis for Bloom Energy
Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from Bloom Energy's seven analysts is for revenues of US$1.03b in 2021, which would reflect a substantial 37% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. The loss per share is expected to greatly reduce in the near future, narrowing 64% to US$0.61. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$1.07b and losses of US$0.47 per share in 2021. While next year's revenue estimates dropped there was also a loss per share expectations, suggesting the consensus has a bit of a mixed view on the stock.
There was no major change to the consensus price target of US$18.00, signalling that the business is performing roughly in line with expectations, despite lower earnings per share forecasts. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on Bloom Energy, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$24.00 and the most bearish at US$8.50 per share. 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.
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. Next year brings more of the same, according to the analysts, with revenue forecast to grow 37%, in line with its 34% annual growth 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 revenues grow 7.2% per year. So although Bloom Energy is expected to maintain its revenue growth rate, it's definitely expected to grow faster than the wider industry.