Bullish Expectations For Groupon; Will It Beat?

Shares of Groupon Inc GRPN are down almost 1 percent on Tuesday morning, in anticipation of the company’s first quarter earnings call, scheduled for after the market close.

According to Estimize, the crowd and experts both expect to see earnings in line with the company’s guidance of $0.02 per share. There is only a slight divergence in revenue estimates: while the company guided revenue of $745 million, the Street projects consensus revenue of $790.32 million, and the crowd, $795.92 million.

These results compare to a net loss of ($0.01) on revenue of $757.6 million reported in the first quarter of 2014, and EPS of $0.06 on revenue of $925.42 retrieved in the last quarter.

The chart above shows how actual earnings have compared to guidance and estimates over the past couple of years. As it can be seen, Groupon has a history of either meeting or beating estimates, suggesting a beat is possible in this quarter as well.

The second graph illustrates the evolution of the experts’ and crowd’s sentiment, as well as the company’s guidance, over time. While the crowd’s consensus has remained in the same level since late-January, both Wall Street and the company became more bullish in late-April.

An Analysts Says…

In a recent report, analysts at Wunderlich said they expect Groupon to beat revenue expectations by a small margin. A Benzinga article reads: “Wunderlich's Blake T. Harper said Groupon will post stronger growth in its North American business while foreign exchange headwinds continue to hurt results in Europe, where the company last year derived 30 percent of revenue.”

The analyst projects first-quarter revenue of $828.7 million, up 9 percent year-over-year, and adjusted EPS of $0.01.