Tech giant Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), known for its popular photo-editing program Photoshop and many other top software titles, reported its earnings numbers last week. Investors weren’t impressed with the report as the stock fell to less than $500 after closing at more than $570 on the previous day.
The company didn’t have a bad quarter, as revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 came in at just under $5.2 billion and it grew at a rate of 11% year over year. The company’s operating income was just $907 million (compared with $1.6 billion in the prior-year period) as Adobe incurred a $1 billion charge related to its termination fee for its failed attempt to acquire Figma, an online collaborating application for web design.
What investors were particularly underwhelmed with was the company’s forecast, with projected revenue for the second quarter (between $5.25 billion and $5.3 billion) coming in slightly lower than what analysts were expecting ($5.31 billion). With many investors bullish on artificial intelligence (AI) and how it could help many tech stocks, they may have been expecting more growth from Adobe. But with photo editing being easier on phones with the help of AI, it may not necessarily be a huge growth catalyst for Adobe in the future; it may even convince users that they don’t need its high-priced software and applications.
At more than 30 times future profits, Adobe’s stock comes at an expensive valuation, which may not be warranted given its fairly modest growth rate in tech these days. Year to date, shares of Adobe are down more than 15%.
