Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM) just released its latest full-year results and things are looking bullish. Symbotic outperformed on both revenues and the expected loss per share, with revenues of US$593m beating estimates by 18%. Statutory losses were US$0.13, 46% smaller thanthe analysts expected. 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. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Symbotic after the latest results.

Check out our latest analysis for Symbotic

Following the latest results, Symbotic's eleven analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$936.8m in 2023. This would be a sizeable 58% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share losses are supposed to see a sharp uptick, reaching US$0.13. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$879.8m and losses of US$0.024 per share in 2023. So it's pretty clear the analysts have mixed opinions on Symbotic even after this update; although they upped their revenue numbers, it came at the cost of a very substantial increase in per-share losses.

It will come as no surprise that expanding losses caused the consensus price target to fall 6.8% to US$18.64with the analysts implicitly ranking ongoing losses as a greater concern than growing revenues. 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. There are some variant perceptions on Symbotic, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$24.00 and the most bearish at US$10.00 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.

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. We can infer from the latest estimates that forecasts expect a continuation of Symbotic'shistorical trends, as the 58% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2023 is roughly in line with the 50% annual revenue growth over the past three years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenues grow 5.2% per year. So it's pretty clear that Symbotic is forecast to grow substantially faster than its industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that the analysts increased their loss per share estimates for next year. Happily, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow faster than the wider industry. Furthermore, the analysts also cut their price targets, suggesting that the latest news has led to greater pessimism about the intrinsic value of the business.

Keeping that in mind, we still think that the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for investors to consider. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Symbotic going out to 2025, and you can see them free on our platform here..

It is also worth noting that we have found 2 warning signs for Symbotic (1 shouldn't be ignored!) that you need to take into consideration.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.