Mounting Regulatory Costs And Intensifying Telehealth Competition Will Undermine Prospects

Key Takeaways

• Regulatory and consumer pressures threaten user growth, pricing power, and margins, especially amid expanding generic competition and industry shifts toward price transparency.
  
• Intensifying data privacy laws and escalating competition challenge digital marketing effectiveness, raise compliance and customer acquisition costs, and complicate international expansion and long-term earnings.
  
• Expanding specialty offerings, technology enhancements, and international growth position Hims & Hers for sustainable revenue and margin improvements in personalized digital healthcare.

Catalysts

Operates a telehealth platform that connects consumers to licensed healthcare professionals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally.

• Despite explosive subscriber and revenue growth, increasing consumer skepticism and regulatory scrutiny over direct-to-consumer health claims are likely to undermine user acquisition and retention, putting future revenue growth and customer lifetime value at risk.
  
• As governments worldwide intensify data privacy regulations, the company's reliance on rich user data for personalization and marketing may be sharply constrained, resulting in elevated compliance costs and eroding the effectiveness of its digital marketing, which would pressure both net margins and top-line expansion.
  
• The industry trend toward greater price transparency, expanding generic drug competition, and potential drug price controls will likely compress product pricing power, especially as Hims & Hers' growth still depends on categories like weight loss and sexual health that are susceptible to commoditization. This is poised to reduce both revenue per subscriber and overall gross margins.
  
• The ongoing proliferation of telehealth competitors and integrated hybrid care models offered by incumbents could make the company's digital-only approach less differentiated, forcing ever-higher marketing spend to maintain growth, while margin compression intensifies as customer acquisition costs rise.
  
• Regulatory changes targeting telemedicine prescribing and cross-border healthcare are probable as the company aggressively expands internationally, increasing operational complexity and cost structure while potentially limiting addressable markets, making long-term earnings and sustained international revenue growth increasingly uncertain.

Hims & Hers Health Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

• This narrative explores a more pessimistic perspective on Hims & Hers Health compared to the consensus, based on a Fair Value that aligns with the bearish cohort of analysts.
• The bearish analysts are assuming Hims & Hers Health's revenue will grow by 18.9% annually over the next 3 years.
• The bearish analysts assume that profit margins will shrink from 9.6% today to 8.0% in 3 years time.
• The bearish analysts expect earnings to reach $270.8 million (and earnings per share of $0.94) by about August 2028, up from $193.6 million today. The analysts are largely in agreement about this estimate.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the price target of the more bearish analyst cohort, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 32.1x on those 2028 earnings, down from 60.6x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US Healthcare industry at 20.0x.
• Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 4.12% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 6.78%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Hims & Hers Health Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

• Hims & Hers is demonstrating strong subscriber growth across multiple specialties, with robust year-over-year gains in dermatology, daily sexual health, and weight loss, which could continue to drive overall revenue and counter any share price decline.
  
• The company is actively expanding its total addressable market through both international expansion-such as acquisitions in Europe and upcoming launches in Canada and other select global markets-and new specialty launches including hormonal health and at-home lab testing, supporting long-term top-line growth.
  
• Hims & Hers is investing heavily in technology, particularly AI and data-driven personalization, aiming to improve retention, streamline operations, and deliver greater value to both providers and subscribers, which may translate to improved net margins and higher earnings over time as the platform scales.
  
• Broadening its offerings from treatment-focused care to preventative and holistic health solutions-including plans for membership-based models and integration with diagnostics and wearables-positions Hims & Hers to capture ongoing secular trends toward personalized and preventative healthcare, potentially boosting future revenue durability and ARPU.
  
• Despite near-term fluctuations in certain segments, the company maintains a strong balance sheet, clear capital allocation discipline, and an articulated path to free cash flow generation and margin expansion, suggesting the financial foundation is in place to support further profitable growth and resilience in net margins.

Valuation

• The assumed bearish price target for Hims & Hers Health is $28.0, which represents the lowest price target estimate amongst analysts. This valuation is based on what can be assumed as the expectations of Hims & Hers Health's future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors from analysts on the more bearish end of the spectrum.
  
• However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $85.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $28.0.
  
• In order for you to agree with the bearish analysts, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $3.4 billion, earnings will come to $270.8 million, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 32.1x, assuming you use a discount rate of 6.8%.
  
• Given the current share price of $51.94, the bearish analyst price target of $28.0 is 85.5% lower. Despite analysts expecting the underlying buisness to improve, they seem to believe the market's expectations are too high.
  
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.