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Last week, you might have seen that Knorr-Bremse AG (ETR:KBX) released its full-year result to the market. The early response was not positive, with shares down 4.1% to €88.45 in the past week. It was not a great result overall. While revenues of €8.0b were in line with analyst predictions, earnings were less than expected, missing statutory estimates by 12% to hit €2.77 per share. 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 Knorr-Bremse after the latest results.
Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from Knorr-Bremse's 13 analysts is for revenues of €8.24b in 2025. This reflects a satisfactory 3.1% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to soar 53% to €4.21. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of €8.28b and earnings per share (EPS) of €4.20 in 2025. 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.
View our latest analysis for Knorr-Bremse
The analysts reconfirmed their price target of €84.47, showing that the business is executing well and in line with expectations. 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. The most optimistic Knorr-Bremse analyst has a price target of €107 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at €60.00. 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.
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. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that Knorr-Bremse's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2025 expected to display 3.1% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 5.4% over the past five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 4.8% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while revenue growth is expected to slow down, the wider industry is also expected to grow faster than Knorr-Bremse.