Fast-food pizza chain Papa John’s (NASDAQ: PZZA) will be announcing earnings results this Thursday before market open. Here’s what investors should know.

Papa John's missed analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $508.2 million, flat year on year. It was a disappointing quarter for the company, with full-year EBITDA guidance missing analysts’ expectations significantly and a miss of analysts’ revenue estimates.

Is Papa John's a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, the market is expecting Papa John’s revenue to decline 2.4% year on year, improving from the 7.1% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Papa John's has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years.

Looking at Papa John’s peers in the traditional fast food segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Yum China delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 8.8%, beating analysts’ expectations by 3.9%, and Wendy's reported a revenue decline of 5.5%, topping estimates by 1.3%. Yum China traded up 9.7% following the results while Wendy's was down 3.7%.

Read our full analysis of Yum China’s results here and Wendy’s results here.

Debates around the economy’s health and the impact of potential tariffs and corporate tax cuts have caused much uncertainty in 2025. While some of the traditional fast food stocks have shown solid performance in this choppy environment, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 4.6% on average over the last month. Papa John's is down 4.6% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $46.18 (compared to the current share price of $34.49).

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