Adobe shares recently soared more than 4% after the company reported better than expected earnings and revenue for its fiscal third quarter. Adobe reported earnings per share of $2.57, while analysts expected earnings of $2.41 per share. Additionally, revenue came in at $3.23 billion, beating estimates of $3.16 billion. Its fourth quarter guidance came in in line with analyst estimates.
These are impressive results, considering the havoc wreaked by the global health crisis. While parts of Adobe were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including its Digital Experience segment and its Document Cloud— the company's answer to DocuSign —overall, Adobe is on the up and up.
“Adobe delivered the best Q3 in our history in a challenging macroeconomic environment, demonstrating the global demand for our innovative solutions,” said Shantanu Narayen, President and Chief Executive Officer at Adobe. “We are confident that our leadership in the creative, document and customer experience management categories will drive continued momentum in 2020 and beyond.”
The acceleration of digital transformation has played a pivotal role in Adobe’s success. Over the last few years, Adobe has transformed drastically. There’s no question that the company has led the charge in creative desktop software, thanks to Photoshop.
Adobe previously operated in a traditional manner, offering licenses to its products that weren’t just costly, but were updated every 18 to 24 months. This all changed when Adobe moved to a cloud-based subscription mode. This move put the customer experience front and center, delivering a continuous stream of innovation to customers. This also gave way to a new generation of users and stamped out issues of piracy.
Now, Adobe has announced another exciting feature that is likely to accelerate its business further into the next quarter. The company revealed its new multi-year vision for the future of the PDF, described as the "biggest change in a generation."
The new artificial intelligence-powered Liquid Mode is built into Adobe Acrobat. Liquid Mode is designed to make navigating and reading PDF documents easier, especially on smaller screens like mobile phones and tablets.
The new feature debuts in Adobe Acrobat Reader for iOS and Android, as well as Play Store-compatible Chromebooks. It will launch on desktops, laptops, and browsers at a later date.
