Last week saw the newest full-year earnings release from Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LON:MRW), an important milestone in the company's journey to build a stronger business. It looks like a pretty bad result, all things considered. Although revenues of UK£18b were in line with analyst predictions, statutory earnings fell badly short, missing estimates by 46% to hit UK£0.04 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 gathered the latest post-earnings forecasts to see what estimates suggest is in store for next year.

See our latest analysis for Wm Morrison Supermarkets

After the latest results, the 14 analysts covering Wm Morrison Supermarkets are now predicting revenues of UK£18.2b in 2022. If met, this would reflect a satisfactory 3.5% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to leap 272% to UK£0.15. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of UK£18.2b and earnings per share (EPS) of UK£0.14 in 2022. So the consensus seems to have become somewhat more optimistic on Wm Morrison Supermarkets' earnings potential following these results.

The consensus price target was unchanged at UK£1.99, implying that the improved earnings outlook is not expected to have a long term impact on value creation for shareholders. 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 Wm Morrison Supermarkets, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at UK£2.45 and the most bearish at UK£1.60 per share. Analysts definitely have varying views on the business, but the spread of estimates is not wide enough in our view to suggest that extreme outcomes could await Wm Morrison Supermarkets shareholders.

Another way we can view these estimates is in the context of the bigger picture, such as how the forecasts stack up against past performance, and whether forecasts are more or less bullish relative to other companies in the industry. The analysts are definitely expecting Wm Morrison Supermarkets' growth to accelerate, with the forecast 3.5% annualised growth to the end of 2022 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 2.1% per annum over the past five years. Other similar companies in the industry (with analyst coverage) are also forecast to grow their revenue at 2.9% per year. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Wm Morrison Supermarkets is expected to grow at about the same rate as the wider industry.