Manufacturing services provider Proto Labs (NYSE: PRLB) will be announcing earnings results this Thursday morning. Here’s what to look for.

Proto Labs beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 2% last quarter, reporting revenues of $126.2 million, down 1.3% year on year. It was a very strong quarter for the company, with a solid beat of analysts’ adjusted operating income estimates and a solid 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 grow 2% year on year to $128.1 million, in line with the 2.8% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.34 per share.

The majority of analysts covering the company have 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 twice over the last two years.

Looking at Proto Labs’s peers in the industrial machinery segment, some have already reported their Q2 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. GE Aerospace delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 11.6%, beating analysts’ expectations by 6.5%, and Gorman-Rupp reported revenues up 5.6%, topping estimates by 2.5%. GE Aerospace traded down 1.1% following the results while Gorman-Rupp was up 9.9%.

Read our full analysis of GE Aerospace’s results here and Gorman-Rupp’s results here.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the industrial machinery segment, with share prices up 5.5% on average over the last month. Proto Labs’s stock price was unchanged during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $45 (compared to the current share price of $39.66).

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