Rio Tinto Group (LON:RIO) investors will be delighted, with the company turning in some strong numbers with its latest results. Results were good overall, with revenues beating analyst predictions by 3.0% to hit US$30b. Statutory earnings per share (EPS) came in at US$5.50, some 9.9% above whatthe analysts had expected. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what the analysts are expecting for next year.

Check out our latest analysis for Rio Tinto Group

Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus, from the 22 analysts covering Rio Tinto Group, is for revenues of US$56.7b in 2022, which would reflect a perceptible 5.8% reduction in Rio Tinto Group's sales over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to decrease 5.4% to US$10.33 in the same period. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$55.3b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$10.00 in 2022. It looks like there's been a modest increase in sentiment following the latest results, withthe analysts becoming a bit more optimistic in their predictions for both revenues and earnings.

Althoughthe analysts have upgraded their earnings estimates, there was no change to the consensus price target of UK£55.90, suggesting that the forecast performance does not have a long term impact on the company's valuation. 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. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Rio Tinto Group at UK£81.81 per share, while the most bearish prices it at UK£40.72. 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. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast annualised revenue decline of 11% by the end of 2022. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 11% over the last five years. Yet aggregate analyst estimates for other companies in the industry suggest that industry revenues are forecast to decline 2.1% per year. So it's pretty clear that Rio Tinto Group's revenues are expected to shrink faster than the wider industry.