Adobe Systems announced their quarterly earnings expectations at levels way above what Wall Street analysts forecasted. The announcement was even more surprising as only three months ago the company’s outlook was negative due to frail economic conditions. Following the statement, company shares rose by 7.2 percent on Nasdaq, from 29.18 dollars per share to 31.30 dollars.
Adobe said that they anticipate a quarterly profit of 54-59 cents per share, compared to the average expectations of analysts, 51 cents per share. The company predicts that its revenues will be in the range of 1-1.05 billion dollars, compared to average forecasts of 992 million dollars.
For the fourth quarter, closed on the 3rd of December, Adobe had a profit of 56 cents a share, beating average expected profit of 52 cents per share. Their revenue for the fourth quarter also topped analysts’ forecasts, reaching one billion dollars, compared to the anticipated 988 million dollars.
Market analysts said that it was not an unexpected performance what happened here, but rather that the company had preferred to be unadventurous in its September-issued outlook, when investors were still concerned about difficult market conditions.
Despite notably improved economic conditions, sales of Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 fell to 542 million dollars from 550 million dollars in the previous quarter. However, this is a development that the company had anticipated due to the weak economy’s effect on sales activities in US educational market and in Japan.
The Creative Suite 5, launched last spring, is a collection of multi-media editing software and it includes notorious Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. The package costs between 1,899 – 2,599 dollars. Those with earlier versions of the software suite have to pay an upgrade fee ranging between 599-899 dollars.