Adobe Earnings Beat Expectations

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Adobe’s stock jumped on Thursday after the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings. The software firm credits a transition to subscription-based licenses for its success.

CNBC reported, “[Adobe’s] net income rose to $222.3 million, or 44 cents per share, from $173.7 million, or 35 cents per share, a year earlier. Earnings excluding items decreased to 61 cents per share in the fiscal fourth quarter from 67 cents in the year-earlier period. Revenue was flat from a year ago at $1.15 billion.”

MarketWatch’s Carla Mozee added, “Shares of Adobe Systems Inc. rose more than 5% Thursday evening after the software maker’s quarterly results came in above Wall Street’s expectations, while an earnings warning from VeriFone Systems Inc. cut into its share price. After a brief trading halt, shares of Adobe climbed 5.3% to $37.42, reacting to the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 61 cents a share. Analysts polled by FactSet had, on average, forecast earnings of 56 cents a share.”

Bloomberg’s Aaron Ricadela noted, “Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen is transitioning the world’s largest maker of graphic design software to offer more of its products over the Web and on mobile devices such as tablets in addition to personal computers. A subscription version of Creative Suite that costs less than the software sold for desktop computers is helping the company add users, said Peter Goldmacher, an analyst at Cowen & Co. ‘The move to subscriptions is happening faster,’ Goldmacher said in a research report this month. Adobe ‘is investing aggressively to accelerate the transition.'”

ZDNet’s Rachel King observed, “During the quarterly conference call this afternoon, CEO Shantanu Narayen said that Adobe made a number of strides with the release of Creative Cloud for individuals and teams this year. Narayen added that Adobe will be following up with a release for the enterprise segment in 2013 as Adobe has already begun to transition certain customers to a new licensing group being referred to as Enterprise Term License Agreements.”