Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited Just Missed Earnings - But Analysts Have Updated Their Models

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (NSE:BPCL) last week reported its latest quarterly results, which makes it a good time for investors to dive in and see if the business is performing in line with expectations. Statutory earnings per share of ₹11.38 unfortunately missed expectations by 18%, although it was encouraging to see revenues of ₹1.5t exceed expectations by 3.9%. 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.

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Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Bharat Petroleum's 16 analysts is for revenues of ₹5.87t in 2027. This would reflect a meaningful 9.1% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to plunge 41% to ₹21.41 in the same period. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of ₹5.65t and earnings per share (EPS) of ₹19.80 in 2027. So there seems to have been a moderate uplift in sentiment following the latest results, given the upgrades to both revenue and earnings per share forecasts for next year.

View our latest analysis for Bharat Petroleum

Althoughthe analysts have upgraded their earnings estimates, there was no change to the consensus price target of ₹335, suggesting that the forecast performance does not have a long term impact on the company's valuation. 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. The most optimistic Bharat Petroleum analyst has a price target of ₹457 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at ₹249. Note the wide gap in analyst price targets? This implies to us that there is a fairly broad range of possible scenarios for the underlying business.

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 clear from the latest estimates that Bharat Petroleum's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 19% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2027 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 6.0% p.a. over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 4.8% per year. It seems obvious that, while the growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, the analysts also expect Bharat Petroleum to grow faster than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The biggest takeaway for us is the consensus earnings per share upgrade, which suggests a clear improvement in sentiment around Bharat Petroleum's earnings potential next year. Pleasantly, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and their forecasts suggest the business is expected to grow faster than the wider industry. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates.

With that in mind, we wouldn't be too quick to come to a conclusion on Bharat Petroleum. Long-term earnings power is much more important than next year's profits. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Bharat Petroleum going out to 2029, and you can see them free on our platform here..

It is also worth noting that we have found 3 warning signs for Bharat Petroleum that you need to take into consideration.

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