As you might know, National Grid plc (LON:NG.) last week released its latest annual, and things did not turn out so great for shareholders. It wasn't a great result overall - while revenue fell marginally short of analyst estimates at UK£15b, statutory earnings missed forecasts by an incredible 37%, coming in at just UK£0.36 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. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.

Check out our latest analysis for National Grid

Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from National Grid's 13 analysts is for revenues of UK£15.5b in 2021, which would reflect a satisfactory 6.9% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to soar 44% to UK£0.53. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of UK£15.7b and earnings per share (EPS) of UK£0.57 in 2021. The analysts seem to have become a little more negative on the business after the latest results, given the small dip in their earnings per share numbers for next year.

The consensus price target held steady at UK£10.09, with the analysts seemingly voting that their lower forecast earnings are not expected to lead to a lower stock price in the foreseeable future. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. There are some variant perceptions on National Grid, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at UK£11.50 and the most bearish at UK£8.00 per share. This shows there is still a bit of diversity in estimates, but analysts don't appear to be totally split on the stock as though it might be a success or failure situation.

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. The analysts are definitely expecting National Grid's growth to accelerate, with the forecast 6.9% growth ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 0.9% per annum over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 3.0% per year. It seems obvious that, while the growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, the analysts also expect National Grid to grow faster than the wider industry.