Buy AbbVie Stock Before Q4 Earnings? Here's What to Know

AbbVie ABBV is set to report fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings on Feb. 4, before the opening bell. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter’s sales and earnings is pegged at $16.36 billion and $2.66 per share, respectively.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 EPS has declined from $10.64 to $9.95, while that for 2026 has fallen from $14.41 to $14.32 over the past 30 days.

ABBV’s Earnings Surprise History

AbbVie’s performance has been impressive, with its earnings exceeding expectations in each of the trailing four quarters. It delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 3.05%. In the last reported quarter, the pharma giant delivered an earnings surprise of 5.08%.

What Our Model Predicts for ABBV

Per our proven model, companies with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) have a good chance of delivering an earnings beat. This is not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

AbbVie currently has an Earnings ESP of 0.00% and a Zacks Rank #3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Factors Likely to Have Shaped AbbVie’s Upcoming Results

For the fourth quarter of 2025, AbbVie expects adjusted earnings to be in the range of $2.61-$2.65 per share. The company expects net revenues of more than $16.3 billion. Currency is expected to have a positive impact of around 1% on sales.

AbbVie’s top-line growth in the quarter is likely to have been driven by higher sales of newer immunology drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq. Approvals in new indications are expected to have driven strong revenues for these drugs. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Skyrizi sales is pegged at $4.91 billion, while the same for Rinvoq is pinned at $2.39 billion.

Sales of the company’s flagship drug Humira are likely to have continued their downward trend due to biosimilar erosion. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the drug’s sales is pegged at $949 million.

In the oncology franchise, we expect J&J JNJ-partnered Imbruvica sales to have declined due to competition from novel oral therapies. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the J&J-partnered drug’s sales is pegged at $715 million.

Roche RHHBY-partnered Venclexta sales are likely to have risen as new patient starts might have improved, driven by strong demand for both CLL and AML indications. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the Roche-partnered drug’s sales is pegged at $725 million.

Sales of the neuroscience franchise have shown strong growth in recent quarters. Growth is likely to have been driven by higher sales of Botox Therapeutic, depression drug Vraylar and new migraine drugs — Ubrelvy and Qulipta. We also expect the Parkinson’s disease drug Vyalev to have contributed to the franchise’s growth during the quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for neuroscience product sales is pegged at about $3.00 billion.

In the aesthetics franchise, we expect overall sales to have started recovering from the sluggish sales of Botox and Juvederm fillers, as experienced in the past few quarters. The improvement is likely driven by stabilizing demand for the facial injectable market in the United States and easing macroeconomic pressures, which is expected to have improved consumer sentiment. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for aesthetics product sales is pegged at $1.28 billion.

Nonetheless, a single quarter’s results are not so important for long-term investors. Let us delve deeper to understand whether to buy, sell or hold the stock at present.

ABBV Stock's Price Performance & Valuation

Shares of AbbVie have underperformed the industry in the past year, as seen in the chart below.

From a valuation standpoint, AbbVie is trading at a discount to the industry. Based on the price/earnings (P/E) ratio, shares currently trade at 15.38 times forward earnings, lower than the industry’s average of 18.42. The stock is also trading above its five-year mean of 13.61.

Our Investment Thesis on ABBV Stock

AbbVie has faced its biggest challenge — Humira biosimilar erosion — quite well through the successful launches of Skyrizi and Rinvoq. Driven by the performance of these two drugs, the company expects to return to robust revenue growth in 2025, just the second year following the U.S. Humira LOE, with a projected high single-digit revenue CAGR through 2029.

While competitive pressure on Imbruvica and declining filler sales pose some headwinds, sales growth from drugs like Venclexta, Vraylar, Ubrelvy, Elahere, Epkinly and Qulipta helps more than offset these losses. These therapies, though smaller in scale than the immunology medications, provide valuable diversification and steady growth that support AbbVie’s overall performance.

In addition, AbbVie continues to invest in its future pipeline through strategic collaborations and partnerships across multiple therapeutic areas. The company recently signed a licensing deal with China-based biopharmaceutical company RemeGen for the latter’s PD-1xVEGF targeting bispecific antibody candidate, RC148.

Stay Invested in ABBV Stock

A decent valuation, expectations for continued strong earnings growth and a robust pipeline are good enough reasons to stay invested in AbbVie stock. Any major decline in the company’s share price could be an opportunity for long-term investors to add the stock to their portfolio.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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