Adobe Stock Drops 8% After Q3 Results Beat Estimates but Q4 Guidance Falls Short

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) reported its fiscal third-quarter results on Thursday, surpassing analysts' expectations, but its guidance for the upcoming quarter fell short of forecasts, leading to a drop in its stock price of more than 8% pre-market today.

The company posted earnings of $4.65 per share on revenue of $5.41 billion, beating analysts’ predictions of $4.53 EPS on $5.37 billion in revenue.

The company reported $504 million in new digital media annualized recurring revenue (ARR), but concerns arose over its guidance for the fourth quarter. Adobe projected Q4 earnings between $4.63 and $4.68 per share, with a midpoint of $4.66, on revenue ranging from $5.50 billion to $5.55 billion. This missed market expectations, which forecasted $4.67 in EPS and $5.60 billion in revenue.

While Adobe’s Document Cloud business maintained strong momentum, growing over 25%, concerns emerged around the projected growth rate for its Creative Cloud segment. Analysts noted that the expected ARR growth of around 11.5% for Creative Cloud in Q4 was slightly below the growth rates seen in previous quarters.

The company anticipates new digital media ARR for the fourth quarter to be around $550 million, which aligns with the guidance but failed to ease investor concerns over the overall outlook.