Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (NSE:BPCL) came out with its first-quarter results last week, and we wanted to see how the business is performing and what industry forecasters think of the company following this report. Bharat Petroleum beat revenue forecasts by a solid 17% to hit ₹1.5t. Statutory earnings per share came in at ₹60.49, in line with expectations. 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. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what the analysts are expecting for next year.
Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Bharat Petroleum's 17 analysts is for revenues of ₹5.47t in 2027. This would reflect a decent 11% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are forecast to nosedive 42% to ₹22.75 in the same period. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of ₹5.35t and earnings per share (EPS) of ₹31.33 in 2027. So it's pretty clear the analysts have mixed opinions on Bharat Petroleum after the latest results; even though they upped their revenue numbers, it came at the cost of a large cut to per-share earnings expectations.
View our latest analysis for Bharat Petroleum
The consensus price target was unchanged at ₹340, suggesting the business is performing roughly in line with expectations, despite some adjustments to profit and revenue forecasts. 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. There are some variant perceptions on Bharat Petroleum, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at ₹490 and the most bearish at ₹236 per share. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the 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 15% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2027 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 6.9% 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 5.6% 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 most important thing to take away is that the analysts downgraded their earnings per share estimates, showing that there has been a clear decline in sentiment following these results. Happily, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting them to grow faster than the wider industry. The consensus price target held steady at ₹340, with the latest estimates not enough to have an impact on their price targets.
Following on from that line of thought, we think that the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. We have estimates - from multiple Bharat Petroleum analysts - going out to 2029, and you can see them free on our platform here.
Before you take the next step you should know about the 2 warning signs for Bharat Petroleum (1 is concerning!) that we have uncovered.
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