Concrete and waste management company Concrete Pumping (NASDAQ: BBCP) reported revenue ahead of Wall Street’s expectations in Q2 CY2025, but sales fell by 5.4% year on year to $103.7 million. The company’s full-year revenue guidance of $385 million at the midpoint came in 0.5% above analysts’ estimates. Its GAAP profit of $0.07 per share was in line with analysts’ consensus estimates.

Is now the time to buy Concrete Pumping? Find out by accessing our full research report, it’s free.

“This quarter, our results demonstrated the resilience and adaptability of our business model amid ongoing macroeconomic headwinds and localized weather-related disruptions,” said CPH CEO Bruce Young.

Company Overview

Going public via SPAC in 2018, Concrete Pumping (NASDAQ: BBCP) is a provider of concrete pumping and waste management services in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Any business can experience short-term success, but top-performing ones enjoy sustained growth for years. Over the last five years, Concrete Pumping grew its sales at a tepid 5.1% compounded annual growth rate. This was below our standard for the industrials sector and is a poor baseline for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss new industry trends or demand cycles. Concrete Pumping’s performance shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 4.9% annually.

This quarter, Concrete Pumping’s revenue fell by 5.4% year on year to $103.7 million but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 3.3%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to remain flat over the next 12 months. Although this projection suggests its newer products and services will fuel better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.

Today’s young investors won’t have read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next.

Operating Margin

Operating margin is one of the best measures of profitability because it tells us how much money a company takes home after procuring and manufacturing its products, marketing and selling those products, and most importantly, keeping them relevant through research and development.

Concrete Pumping has managed its cost base well over the last five years. It demonstrated solid profitability for an industrials business, producing an average operating margin of 11.7%. This result isn’t surprising as its high gross margin gives it a favorable starting point.

Analyzing the trend in its profitability, Concrete Pumping’s operating margin rose by 1.1 percentage points over the last five years, as its sales growth gave it operating leverage.

In Q2, Concrete Pumping generated an operating margin profit margin of 12.5%, down 2.7 percentage points year on year. Since Concrete Pumping’s operating margin decreased more than its gross margin, we can assume it was less efficient because expenses such as marketing, R&D, and administrative overhead increased.

Earnings Per Share

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

Concrete Pumping’s full-year EPS flipped from negative to positive over the last five years. This is encouraging and shows it’s at a critical moment in its life.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a shorter period to see if we are missing a change in the business.

Sadly for Concrete Pumping, its EPS declined by more than its revenue over the last two years, dropping 44.5%. This tells us the company struggled to adjust to shrinking demand.

Diving into the nuances of Concrete Pumping’s earnings can give us a better understanding of its performance. Concrete Pumping’s operating margin has declined over the last two years. This was the most relevant factor (aside from the revenue impact) behind its lower earnings; interest expenses and taxes can also affect EPS but don’t tell us as much about a company’s fundamentals.

In Q2, Concrete Pumping reported EPS of $0.07, down from $0.13 in the same quarter last year. Despite falling year on year, this print easily cleared analysts’ estimates. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Concrete Pumping’s full-year EPS of $0.16 to grow 12.5%.

Key Takeaways from Concrete Pumping’s Q2 Results

We enjoyed seeing Concrete Pumping beat analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. We were also glad its full-year EBITDA guidance exceeded Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its EBITDA slightly missed. Overall, we think this was a mixed quarter with some key areas of upside but also some blemishes. The stock remained flat at $6.81 immediately after reporting.

Indeed, Concrete Pumping had a rock-solid quarterly earnings result, but is this stock a good investment here? We think that the latest quarter is only one piece of the longer-term business quality puzzle. Quality, when combined with valuation, can help determine if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.