GameStop Expected To Report Flat YoY Earnings

GameStop Corp. GME is scheduled to report its first quarter financial results after the market closes on Thursday and, according to Crowdsourced site Estimize, the crowd and the Street expect pretty much flat year-over-year earnings, while the company anticipates a slight decline.

For the current quarter, the company guided earnings of $0.56 per share on revenue of $1.986 billion. Meanwhile, both the crowd and the Street are slightly more bullish and project earnings of $0.58 per share on revenue of $2.028 billion and $2.046 billion, respectively.

These figures compare to earnings of $0.59 per share and revenue of $1.996 billion reported in the same quarter last year.

A second chart, featured below, shows how the Street’s consensus and guidance have changed over time.

As one can see, while guidance remained unchanged, experts have become increasingly bearish on the results, as the date of their announcement got closer.

Two Wall Street Firms Weigh In

In a recent report, analysts at Oppenheimer reiterated an Outperform rating and $45 price target on GameStop. They commented, "Recent reports from leading publishers suggest sales of full game downloads, while growing, are still relatively small and downloadable content (DLC), a category GME sells very well, is driving digital revenues."

Related Link: Wedbush Maintains Outperform, $50 PT At GameStop

Wedbush also maintained an Outperform rating and a $50 price target. The analysts expect results in line with guidance for the quarter, driven by next-generation software strength – same as Oppenheimer.

"GameStop's leading market share on next-gen HW and SW should allow a sales growth figure at the high-end of the range, assuming Technology Brands performed roughly in-line with our expectations," the analysts said.