Adobe Results Top Estimates

(RTTNews) - Publishing and design software maker Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) said Tuesday after the markets closed that its second quarter profit rose 16% from last year, helped by strong growth in subscription revenue amid accelerated adoption of the company's cloud solutions.

The company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, also came in above analysts' expectations as did its quarterly revenue. However, the company gave a downbeat outlook for the current quarter.

"Adobe's first-half upside was driven by accelerated adoption of Creative Cloud and Adobe Marketing Cloud," said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe. "We're excited about our upcoming product pipeline and expect a strong second half of the year."

Adobe shares are currently gaining 9.05% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $67.54, down 8 cents. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $42.97 to $71.11.

For the second quarter ended May 30, 2014, the San Jose, California-based company reported net income of $88.5 million or $0.17 per share, compared to $76.5 million or $0.15 per share for the year-ago quarter.

Excluding items, adjusted net income for the second quarter was $186.3 million or $0.37 per share, compared to $182.9 million or $0.36 per share in the prior year quarter.

On average, 19 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.30 per share for the second quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Adobe, famous for its Photoshop editing and Acrobat document-sharing software, said total revenue for the second quarter rose 6% to $1.07 billion from $1.01 billion in the same quarter last year. Seventeen analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $1.03 billion for the second quarter.

For the second quarter, Adobe had forecast revenue of $1 billion to $1.05 billion and adjusted earnings of $0.26 to $0.32 per share.

Products revenue for the quarter fell 26% from a year ago to $479.2 million, while subscription revenue surged 87% to $476.7 million and services and support revenue increased 1% from last year to $112.3 million.

Adobe ended the second quarter with 2,308,000 paid Creative Cloud subscriptions, an increase of 464,000 from a quarter ago.

Adobe Marketing Cloud quarterly revenue rose 23% year-over-year to $283 million.

The company repurchased about 2.6 million shares during the second quarter, returning about $166 million of cash to shareholders.

Looking forward to the third quarter, the company forecasts revenue of $975 million to $1.025 billion, earnings of $0.02 to $0.08 per share and adjusted earnings of $0.22 to $0.28 per share. Analysts currently expect the company to earn $0.27 per share on revenue of $1.02 billion for the third quarter.