Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) reported a 26% jump in earnings for the fourth quarter of 2019 as stable demand for its products, favorable market conditions, and a strong customer base drove revenues higher. The results exceeded analysts’ expectations.
Net income jumped by 26% to $851.9 million or $1.74 per share. Adjusted earnings increased by 25% to $2.29 per share.
Revenue grew by 21% to $2.99 billion. The top line benefited from the growth in Digital Media and in Digital Experience that offset declines in Publishing.
Looking ahead into the first quarter of 2020, the company predicts total revenue of about $3.04 billion, unadjusted earnings of $1.76 per share, and adjusted earnings of $2.23 per share.
For fiscal 2020, total revenue is still expected to be about $13.15 billion, unadjusted earnings of about $7.40 per share, and adjusted earnings of $9.75 per share.
The company expects total revenue to grow by about 17% year-over-year in the first half of fiscal 2020 followed by about 18% growth in the second half of the year. Adobe remained bullish about fiscal 2020 and beyond based on its strong momentum exiting 2019.
For the fourth quarter, Digital Media revenue jumped by 22% helped by growth in Creative and Document Cloud. The Document Cloud growth is being driven by new customer acquisition, migration from Acrobat perpetual licenses to subscriptions, and the monetization of an ever-increasing universe of Document Cloud mobile app users.
Digital Media enterprise adoption continues to expand with outstanding seasonal Q4 performance. Finally, the company drove record demand for subscriptions during the last week of the quarter, culminating in its biggest ever Black Friday on Adobe.com.
Digital Experience segment revenue climbed by 24% year-over-year for the fourth quarter. The ever increasing demand for data and insights, content and personalization, customer journey management, commerce, and advertising is expanding its total addressable market for Experience Cloud to $84 billion by 2022. However, the Publishing segment revenue fell by 15%.