LinkedIn Earnings Preview: The Street And The Crowd Expect To See At Least 50% EPS Growth

Shares of LinkedIn Corp LNKD are down more than 1.2 percent on Thursday morning, as the company prepares to report its fist quarter financial results after the market closes.

A look at Estimize can provide an idea of what to expect; and it seems like both the Street and the crowd project growth above the company’s guidance. While LinkedIn guided earnings of $0.53 per share on revenue of $620 million, the Street models EPS of $0.57 on revenue of $637.52 million, and the crowd (118 estimates included in consensus) projects EPS of $0.60 on revenue of $648.64 million.

A few things should be noted from these figures:

• Wall Street, Main Street and the company expect to see year-over-year growth in EPS. In the same quarter last year, LinkedIn reported EPS of $0.38.
• The estimates and the guidance imply a small decline from last quarter’s EPS of $0.61
• The company has beat Wall Street consensus estimates consistently over the last eight quarter, at least (see graph below).
• Results have been well above guidance in the last couple of quarters

The graph above shows LinkedIn’s history of actual earnings compared to estimates and guidance. The chart below, how EPS estimates have evolved over the quarter.

As it can be seen above, both the crowd and experts have become increasingly constructive on LinkedIn’s earnings as the quarter went by. Currently, with earnings just around the corner, estimates stand at their highest point in the quarter.

What Wall Street Expects

Wedbush analysts recently said they expect LinkedIn to report its quarterly results at the high end of guidance, but in-line with the firm’s estimates and the consensus.

“Wunderlich said LinkedIn will ‘continue to execute well’ and expressed high expectations for the company's Talent Solutions and Sales Navigator segments. The expectations may be large, but Wunderlich said that the company will meet them. Specifically, Wunderlich pointed to Lynda.com, which the analysts said should be a ‘positive move to expand its educational and training video content,’” a recent Benzinga article reads.