Publishing and design software maker Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE: Quote) said Tuesday after the markets closed that its first quarter profit fell 65% from last year, hurt by lower revenue as well as higher costs and expenses.
However, the company’s quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, came in above analysts’ expectations as did its quarterly revenue.
“Creative Cloud is quickly becoming mainstream, with the overwhelming majority of Creative purchases on Adobe.com now being Creative Cloud subscriptions,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe. “With Adobe Marketing Cloud, we are the partner of choice for Chief Marketing Officers as we help our customers migrate their businesses online.”
Adobe shares are currently gaining 6.13% in after hours trading after closing the day’s regular trading session at $40.75, down 31 cents. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $29.52 to $41.93.
For the first quarter ended March 1, 2013, the San Jose, California-based company reported net income of $65.1 million or $0.13 per share, compared to $185.2 million or $0.37 per share for the year-ago quarter.
Excluding items, adjusted net income for the first quarter was $177.9 million or $0.35 per share, compared to $284.5 million or $0.57 per share in the prior year quarter.
On average, 24 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.31 per share for the first quarter. Analysts’ estimates typically exclude special items.
Adobe, famous for its Photoshop editing and Acrobat document-sharing software, said total revenue for the first quarter fell 4% to $1.10 billion from $1.05 billion in the same quarter last year. Twenty-two analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $986.00 million for the first quarter.
For the first quarter, Adobe had forecast revenue of $950 million to $1.0 billion, earnings of $0.08 to $0.14 per share and adjusted earnings of $0.26 to $0.32 per share.
Products revenue for the quarter fell 16% from a year ago, while subscription revenue rose 53% and services and support revenue increased 19% from last year.
The company said it continued to accelerate adoption of Adobe Creative Cloud during the first quarter, as it migrates to a subscription model in its Digital Media business.
Adobe ended the first quarter with 479,000 paid Creative Cloud members, an increase of 153,000 from a quarter ago.
Adobe Marketing Cloud had quarterly revenue of $215.4 million, up 20% from a year ago.
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by RTT Staff Writer
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