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Last week, you might have seen that Ultra Clean Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:UCTT) released its first-quarter result to the market. The early response was not positive, with shares down 7.1% to US$31.17 in the past week. It was not a great result overall. While revenues of US$564m were in line with analyst predictions, earnings were less than expected, missing statutory estimates by 17% to hit US$0.61 per share. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. We've gathered the most recent statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their earnings models, following these results.
See our latest analysis for Ultra Clean Holdings
Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from Ultra Clean Holdings' five analysts is for revenues of US$2.43b in 2022, which would reflect a decent 8.3% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to shoot up 30% to US$3.50. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$2.45b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.72 in 2022. So it looks like there's been a small decline in overall sentiment after the recent results - there's been no major change to revenue estimates, but the analysts did make a small dip in their earnings per share forecasts.
The average price target fell 6.7% to US$64.40, with reduced earnings forecasts clearly tied to a lower valuation estimate. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Ultra Clean Holdings at US$85.00 per share, while the most bearish prices it at US$45.00. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the business.
Taking a look at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can understand these forecasts is to see how they compare to both past performance and industry growth estimates. We would highlight that Ultra Clean Holdings' revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 11% annualised growth rate until the end of 2022 being well below the historical 20% p.a. growth over the last five years. Compare this to the 124 other companies in this industry with analyst coverage, which are forecast to grow their revenue at 10% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it looks like Ultra Clean Holdings is forecast to grow at about the same rate as the wider industry.