iRobot (IRBT, $52.86) shares downgraded by Raymond James analyst, on competition concerns

iRobot shares plunged in pre-market trading Wednesday, after an analyst downgraded the stock.

Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale downgraded the Roomba maker’s stock to underperform, citing concerns over increased competition in the  robotic vacuum cleaners space.

Gesuale feels that iRobot is facing intense competition and pricing pressure from Shark's competing models, which are "peeling back prices at the high end" even as it "makes the mid-market vanish."

The "robot wars" between competing android vacuum cleaners would "continue to entice consumers towards substitute offerings," the analyst wrote.

Raymond James expects iRobot’s 2020 earnings per share to be $2.40 and revenue $1.27 billion, well below the estimates of analysts tracked by Bloomberg.

Contributor

Sergey Savastiouk|Expert

Sergey Savastiouk, Ph.D. has a degree in Applied Mathematics from Moscow University and has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, manager, and mathematician. His professional expertise is in applied mathematics, mathematical modeling, system and pattern analysis, and software and hardware system integration. He has served as the CEO of several hi-tech start-up companies and nonprofit organizations, which has given him proven capabilities in business strategy for high-tech start-up companies, market assessment, company formation, team building, product development, marketing, and sales. He has published numerous articles in journals and magazines on related fields. As a retail investor, he spent 15 years developing his proprietary trading and quantitative algorithms (now Tickeron’s A.I.), which brought him significant returns in trading the stock market. His current work and goal in founding Tickeron is to bring professional, sophisticated stock market analysis capabilities to retail investors via an easy-to-use interface.