The investors in Sweetgreen, Inc.'s (NYSE:SG) will be rubbing their hands together with glee today, after the share price leapt 43% to US$16.36 in the week following its yearly results. The results overall were pretty much dead in line with analyst forecasts; revenues were US$584m and statutory losses were US$1.01 per share. 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. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.

See our latest analysis for Sweetgreen

Taking into account the latest results, the most recent consensus for Sweetgreen from nine analysts is for revenues of US$664.8m in 2024. If met, it would imply a solid 14% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Losses are predicted to fall substantially, shrinking 26% to US$0.74. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$661.3m and losses of US$0.77 per share in 2024. It looks like there's been a modest increase in sentiment in the recent updates, with the analysts becoming a bit more optimistic in their predictions for losses per share, even though the revenue numbers were unchanged.

These new estimates led to the consensus price target rising 11% to US$15.00, with lower forecast losses suggesting things could be looking up for Sweetgreen. 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 Sweetgreen, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$19.00 and the most bearish at US$11.00 per share. Analysts definitely have varying views on the business, but the spread of estimates is not wide enough in our view to suggest that extreme outcomes could await Sweetgreen shareholders.

One way to get more context on these forecasts is to look at how they compare to both past performance, and how other companies in the same industry are performing. We would highlight that Sweetgreen's revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 14% annualised growth rate until the end of 2024 being well below the historical 31% p.a. growth over the last three years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 9.5% annually. So it's pretty clear that, while Sweetgreen's revenue growth is expected to slow, it's still expected to grow faster than the industry itself.