Celebrations may be in order for Manulife Financial Corporation (TSE:MFC) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a significant upgrade to their statutory estimates for the company. The analysts have sharply increased their revenue numbers, with a view that Manulife Financial will make substantially more sales than they'd previously expected.

Following the upgrade, the latest consensus from Manulife Financial's eleven analysts is for revenues of CA$72b in 2025, which would reflect a huge 139% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are presumed to soar 40% to CA$4.09. Previously, the analysts had been modelling revenues of CA$56b and earnings per share (EPS) of CA$4.09 in 2025. There's clearly been a surge in bullishness around the company's sales pipeline, even if there's no real change in earnings per share forecasts.

Check out our latest analysis for Manulife Financial

It may not be a surprise to see that the analysts have reconfirmed their price target of CA$46.57, implying that the uplift in sales is not expected to greatly contribute to Manulife Financial's valuation in the near term.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Manulife Financial's past performance and to peers in the same industry. For example, we noticed that Manulife Financial's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with revenues forecast to exhibit 101% growth to the end of 2025 on an annualised basis. That is well above its historical decline of 26% a year over the past five years. Compare this against analyst estimates for the broader industry, which suggest that (in aggregate) industry revenues are expected to grow 6.8% annually. So it looks like Manulife Financial is expected to grow faster than its competitors, at least for a while.

The Bottom Line

The most obvious conclusion from this consensus update is that there's been no major change in the business' prospects in recent times, with analysts holding earnings per share steady, in line with previous estimates. They also upgraded their revenue estimates for next year, and sales are expected to grow faster than the wider market. Seeing the dramatic upgrade to next year's forecasts, it might be time to take another look at Manulife Financial.

Even so, the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for the value creation of shareholders. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Manulife Financial going out to 2026, and you can see them free on our platform here..

Another way to search for interesting companies that could be reaching an inflection point is to track whether management are buying or selling, with our free list of growing companies backed by insiders.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.