LegalZoom.com, Inc. Just Beat EPS By 29%: Here's What Analysts Think Will Happen Next

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It's been a pretty great week for LegalZoom.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:LZ) shareholders, with its shares surging 17% to US$8.49 in the week since its latest quarterly results. It looks like a credible result overall - although revenues of US$169m were what the analysts expected, LegalZoom.com surprised by delivering a (statutory) profit of US$0.06 per share, an impressive 29% above what was forecast. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.

See our latest analysis for LegalZoom.com

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NasdaqGS:LZ Earnings and Revenue Growth November 9th 2024

Taking into account the latest results, the most recent consensus for LegalZoom.com from eight analysts is for revenues of US$699.8m in 2025. If met, it would imply a credible 3.1% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to shoot up 24% to US$0.18. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$705.8m and earnings per share (EPS) of US$0.15 in 2025. There was no real change to the revenue estimates, but the analysts do seem more bullish on earnings, given the nice increase in earnings per share expectations following these results.

The analysts have been lifting their price targets on the back of the earnings upgrade, with the consensus price target rising 8.8% to US$7.62. 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 LegalZoom.com analyst has a price target of US$9.50 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$6.00. 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 LegalZoom.com shareholders.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the LegalZoom.com's past performance and to peers in the same industry. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that LegalZoom.com's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2025 expected to display 2.5% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 9.3% 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 5.7% 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 LegalZoom.com.