It's been a mediocre week for Spark New Zealand Limited (NZSE:SPK) shareholders, with the stock dropping 12% to NZ$3.85 in the week since its latest full-year results. Statutory earnings per share fell badly short of expectations, coming in at NZ$0.17, some 24% below analyst forecasts, although revenues were okay, approximately in line with analyst estimates at NZ$3.9b. 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. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year.

View our latest analysis for Spark New Zealand

Taking into account the latest results, Spark New Zealand's eight analysts currently expect revenues in 2025 to be NZ$3.88b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to swell 19% to NZ$0.21. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of NZ$4.01b and earnings per share (EPS) of NZ$0.24 in 2025. From this we can that sentiment has definitely become more bearish after the latest results, leading to lower revenue forecasts and a substantial drop in earnings per share estimates.

The analysts made no major changes to their price target of NZ$4.68, suggesting the downgrades are not expected to have a long-term impact on Spark New Zealand's valuation. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. The most optimistic Spark New Zealand analyst has a price target of NZ$5.30 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at NZ$4.20. Still, with such a tight range of estimates, it suggeststhe analysts have a pretty good idea of what they think the company is worth.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Spark New Zealand's past performance and to peers in the same industry. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that Spark New Zealand's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2025 expected to display 0.4% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 3.7% 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 3.4% annually. So it's pretty clear that, while revenue growth is expected to slow down, the wider industry is also expected to grow faster than Spark New Zealand.