Serko Limited (NZSE:SKO) Analysts Are Reducing Their Forecasts For This Year

Market forces rained on the parade of Serko Limited (NZSE:SKO) shareholders today, when the analysts downgraded their forecasts for this year. Revenue and earnings per share (EPS) forecasts were both revised downwards, with analysts seeing grey clouds on the horizon.

Following the latest downgrade, the current consensus, from the three analysts covering Serko, is for revenues of NZ$16m in 2021, which would reflect a sizeable 40% reduction in Serko's sales over the past 12 months. Per-share losses are expected to explode, reaching NZ$0.18 per share. Yet before this consensus update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of NZ$18m and losses of NZ$0.14 per share in 2021. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a serious cut to their revenue forecasts while also expecting losses per share to increase.

Check out our latest analysis for Serko

The consensus price target lifted 7.5% to NZ$4.96, clearly signalling that the weaker revenue and EPS outlook are not expected to weigh on the stock over the longer term. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. There are some variant perceptions on Serko, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at NZ$5.51 and the most bearish at NZ$4.40 per share. With such a narrow range of valuations, analysts apparently share similar views on what they think the business is worth.

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 revenue decline of 40%, a significant reduction from annual growth of 19% over the last five years. Compare this with our data, which suggests that other companies in the same industry are, in aggregate, expected to see their revenue grow 16% next year. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - Serko is expected to lag the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that analysts increased their loss per share estimates for this year. Unfortunately analysts also downgraded their revenue estimates, and industry data suggests that Serko's revenues are expected to grow slower than the wider market. The increasing price target is not intuitively what we would expect to see, given these downgrades, and we'd suggest shareholders revisit their investment thesis before making a decision.

Even so, the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for the value creation of shareholders. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Serko going out to 2024, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are downgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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