Manufacturing services provider Proto Labs (NYSE:PRLB) will be reporting results tomorrow before market hours. Here’s what to expect.

Proto Labs beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 3.3% last quarter, reporting revenues of $125.6 million, down 3.9% year on year. It was an exceptional quarter for the company, with a solid beat of analysts’ EPS estimates and an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates.

Is Proto Labs a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Proto Labs’s revenue to decline 3.8% year on year to $120.3 million, a reversal from the 8.2% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.32 per share.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Proto Labs has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates four times over the last two years.

Looking at Proto Labs’s peers in the industrial machinery segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. GE Aerospace delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 4.5%, beating analysts’ expectations by 3.9%, and Mueller Water Products reported revenues up 18.7%, topping estimates by 5.4%. GE Aerospace traded up 4.5% following the results while Mueller Water Products was also up 16.6%.

Read our full analysis of GE Aerospace’s results here and Mueller Water Products’s results here.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the industrial machinery segment, with share prices up 2.8% on average over the last month. Proto Labs is up 16.7% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $40.33 (compared to the current share price of $44.71).

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