What To Expect From 3M’s (MMM) Q3 Earnings

Industrial conglomerate 3M (NYSE:MMM) will be announcing earnings results tomorrow before market hours. Here’s what investors should know.

3M beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 3.3% last quarter, reporting revenues of $6.02 billion, down 24.7% year on year. It was an exceptional quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ operating margin estimates and a solid beat of analysts’ organic revenue estimates.

Is 3M a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting 3M’s revenue to decline 24.5% year on year to $6.06 billion, a further deceleration from the 3% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $1.90 per share.

Heading into earnings, analysts covering the company have grown increasingly bearish with revenue estimates seeing 4 downward revisions over the last 30 days (we track 10 analysts). 3M has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates five times over the last two years.

Looking at 3M’s peers in the industrial machinery segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Snap-on posted flat year-on-year revenue, beating analysts’ expectations by 7.8%, and Worthington reported a revenue decline of 17.5%, falling short of estimates by 13.1%. Snap-on traded up 9.4% following the results while Worthington was down 5.5%.

Read our full analysis of Snap-on’s results here and Worthington’s results here.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the industrial machinery segment, with share prices up 3.3% on average over the last month. 3M’s stock price was unchanged during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $137.50 (compared to the current share price of $135.09).

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