Last week, you might have seen that eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) released its third-quarter result to the market. The early response was not positive, with shares down 7.9% to US$58.11 in the past week. It looks like a credible result overall - although revenues of US$2.6b were what the analysts expected, eBay surprised by delivering a (statutory) profit of US$1.29 per share, an impressive 54% above what was forecast. 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. We've gathered the most recent statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their earnings models, following these results.

View our latest analysis for eBay

After the latest results, the 29 analysts covering eBay are now predicting revenues of US$10.6b in 2025. If met, this would reflect a satisfactory 3.4% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are forecast to decline 11% to US$3.75 in the same period. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$10.7b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.76 in 2025. So it's pretty clear that, although the analysts have updated their estimates, there's been no major change in expectations for the business following the latest results.

It will come as no surprise then, to learn that the consensus price target is largely unchanged at US$61.22. Fixating on a single price target can be unwise though, since the consensus target is effectively the average of analyst price targets. As a result, some investors like to look at the range of estimates to see if there are any diverging opinions on the company's valuation. Currently, the most bullish analyst values eBay at US$72.00 per share, while the most bearish prices it at US$50.00. As you can see, analysts are not all in agreement on the stock's future, but the range of estimates is still reasonably narrow, which could suggest that the outcome is not totally unpredictable.

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. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that eBay's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2025 expected to display 2.7% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 4.1% over the past five years. Compare this against other companies (with analyst forecasts) in the industry, which are in aggregate expected to see revenue growth of 10% annually. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that eBay is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants.