Investors in Hexagon AB (publ) (STO:HEXA B) had a good week, as its shares rose 5.6% to close at kr555 following the release of its full-year results. Hexagon reported in line with analyst predictions, delivering revenues of €3.9b and statutory earnings per share of €1.92, suggesting the business is executing well and in line with its plan. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what top analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. So we gathered the latest post-earnings forecasts to see what analysts' statutory forecasts suggest is in store for next year.

View our latest analysis for Hexagon

Taking into account the latest results, the latest consensus from Hexagon's twelve analysts is for revenues of €4.14b in 2020, which would reflect a modest 5.8% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to expand 20% to €2.30. In the lead-up to this report, analysts had been modelling revenues of €4.08b and earnings per share (EPS) of €2.27 in 2020. The consensus analysts don't seem to have seen anything in these results that would have changed their view on the business, given there's been no major change to their estimates.

Analysts reconfirmed their price target of €52.62, showing that the business is executing well and in line with expectations. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic Hexagon analyst has a price target of €60.20 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at €41.71. There are definitely some different views on the stock, but the range of estimates is not wide enough as to imply that the situation is unforecastable, in our view.

Zooming out to look at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up both against past performance, and against industry growth estimates. It's pretty clear that analysts expect Hexagon's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues next year expected to grow 5.8%, compared to a historical growth rate of 7.6% over the past five years. Compare this to the other companies in this market with analyst coverage, which are forecast to grow their revenue at 6.1% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it looks like analysts are expecting Hexagon to grow at about the same rate as the wider market.