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Investors in Metro AG (ETR:B4B) had a good week, as its shares rose 4.1% to close at €4.54 following the release of its quarterly results. Results overall were respectable, with statutory earnings of €1.21 per share roughly in line with what the analysts had forecast. Revenues of €8.0b came in 3.0% ahead of analyst predictions. 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. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what the analysts are expecting for next year.
View our latest analysis for Metro
Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from Metro's nine analysts is for revenues of €32.2b in 2025. This reflects a credible 4.2% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Metro is also expected to turn profitable, with statutory earnings of €0.29 per share. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €32.2b and earnings per share (EPS) of €0.31 in 2025. So it looks like there's been a small decline in overall sentiment after the recent results - there's been no major change to revenue estimates, but the analysts did make a small dip in their earnings per share forecasts.
The consensus price target held steady at €5.67, with the analysts seemingly voting that their lower forecast earnings are not expected to lead to a lower stock price in the foreseeable future. Fixating on a single price target can be unwise though, since the consensus target is effectively the average of analyst price targets. As a result, some investors like to look at the range of estimates to see if there are any diverging opinions on the company's valuation. There are some variant perceptions on Metro, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at €9.50 and the most bearish at €4.00 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. We would highlight that Metro's revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 3.4% annualised growth rate until the end of 2025 being well below the historical 4.7% p.a. growth over the last five years. Compare this against other companies (with analyst forecasts) in the industry, which are in aggregate expected to see revenue growth of 4.4% annually. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that Metro is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants.