Adobe shares fall after company cuts sales forecast

15 years ago

“Adobe Systems Inc. shares fell 3.7 percent after the company forecast second-quarter profit that missed analysts’ estimates, hampered by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan,” Aaron Ricadela reports for Bloomberg. “Profit excluding some costs will be 47 cents to 54 cents a share this quarter, Adobe said yesterday in a statement. That compared with the 56-cent average of projections compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue will be $970 million to $1.02 billion, the company said. Analysts had estimated sales of $1.04 billion.”

Ricadela reports, “Adobe cut its revenue forecast by $50 million because of the disaster in Japan. The company gets 10 percent to 15 percent of its revenue each quarter from that country, making it Adobe’s second-largest market after the U.S… Adobe fell $1.20 to $31.68 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have dropped 9.1 percent since March 10, the day before the earthquake struck in Japan.”

“Adobe plans to release an update to its Creative Suite software that will make it easier for designers to build websites using the HTML5 Internet standard. The company released Creative Suite 5, which includes the Photoshop and Illustrator programs, last April. The next major version will arrive in 2012, Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen said on a conference call yesterday,” Ricadela reports. “The HTML5 standard, which is supported by Apple Inc. and Google Inc., competes with Adobe’s Flash Internet video and animation software. In the past year, Adobe has clashed with Apple, which bans Flash on the iPad tablet computer and iPhone.”