NTELOS Holdings Earnings Preview

If NTELOS Holdings (Nasdaq: NTLS) misses estimates again it will be the fifth consecutive quarter for the company. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday, Feb. 20. NTELOS Holdings is an integrated communications provider that offers a range of products and services to businesses, telecommunications carriers, and residential customers in Virginia, West Virginia, and surrounding states.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back NTELOS Holdings, with six out of seven rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like NTELOS Holdings better than competitor Shenandoah Telecommunications overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $107.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 23.9% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.39 per share. Estimates range from $0.25 to $0.62.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are enthusiastically backing the stock, with 100% granting it an outperform"rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars, with 96% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on NTELOS Holdings, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 43 posts in the past 30 days. NTELOS Holdings has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.7 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 16.8% while cost of sales rose 27% to $52.3 million from a year earlier.

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. NTELOS Holdings' net margins, which reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit, have dropped year over year for the last three quarters. See how NTELOS Holdings has been doing for the last four quarters:

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.