ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $69 (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 497.4 million; Market cap: $34.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 8.5; No dividends paid since June 2005; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.adobe.com) earned $140.6 million in its fiscal 2014 third quarter, which ended August 29, 2014. That’s down 14.5% from $164.4 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings declined 12.5%, to $0.28 from $0.32, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue rose 1.0%, to $1.01 billion from $995.1 million.
The company continues to shift away from selling software as a one-time purchase and toward a subscription model. It now gets 63% of its revenue from recurring subscriptions.
Adobe ended the latest quarter with 2.8 million subscribers to its Creative Cloud package of photo editing and desktop publishing programs, up 21.8% from a year earlier. Adobe Marketing Cloud, a package of software aimed at improving online marketing efforts and website performance, saw its revenue rise 13.8%.
The company continues to spend a high 21% of its revenue on research, which helps it compete in its rapidly changing industry. However, the stock now trades at 56.1 times the $1.23 a share that Adobe will likely earn in fiscal 2014. That’s a high p/e ratio for a company that mainly serves customers in cyclical businesses like publishing.
Adobe is still a hold.