Investors in WW International, Inc. (NASDAQ:WW) had a good week, as its shares rose 6.6% to close at US$3.38 following the release of its full-year results. Revenues were in line with expectations, at US$890m, while statutory losses ballooned to US$1.46 per share. 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. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on WW International after the latest results.

Check out our latest analysis for WW International

After the latest results, the consensus from WW International's five analysts is for revenues of US$849.3m in 2024, which would reflect a small 4.5% decline in revenue compared to the last year of performance. The loss per share is expected to greatly reduce in the near future, narrowing 91% to US$0.12. Before this earnings announcement, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$923.3m and losses of US$0.043 per share in 2024. While this year's revenue estimates dropped there was also a sizeable expansion in loss per share expectations, suggesting the consensus has a bit of a mixed view on the stock.

The average price target fell 36% to US$6.58, implicitly signalling that lower earnings per share are a leading indicator for WW International's valuation. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. The most optimistic WW International analyst has a price target of US$12.50 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$1.50. So we wouldn't be assigning too much credibility to analyst price targets in this case, because there are clearly some widely different views on what kind of performance this business can generate. As a result it might not be a great idea to make decisions based on the consensus price target, which is after all just an average of this wide range of estimates.

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. We would also point out that the forecast 4.5% annualised revenue decline to the end of 2024 is better than the historical trend, which saw revenues shrink 10% annually over the past five years By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 12% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while it does have declining revenues, the analysts also expect WW International to suffer worse than the wider industry.