Adobe Up 6%: FYQ4 Rev, EPS Beat; Q1, Year Views Miss

Adobe (ADBE) this afternoon reported fiscal Q4 revenue and profit per share that topped analysts’ expectations, but offered a view for this quarter that was below consensus.

Revenue in the three months ended in November rose fractionally, year over year, to $1.15 billion, yielding EPS of 61 cents, excluding some costs.

Analysts on average had been modeling $1.1 billion and 56 cents.

The revenue figure came in above the projected range of $1.08 billion to $1.13 billion the company had offered.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said the company’s subscriptions to its “Creative Cloud” suite of software were higher than the company expected, with paid subs rising to 326,000, yielding revenue on an annualized basis of $153 million.

CFO Mark Garrett said the company was confident that “fiscal 2013 will be the pivotal year for the transition.”

Adobe ended the fiscal year with $1.43 billion in cash and equivalents, up from $989.5 billion a year earlier.

Adobe management will host a conference call with analysts at 5 pm, Eastern time, and you can catch the webcast of it here.

Adobe shares are up 63 cents, or 1.8%, at $36.16 $1.70, or almost 5%, at $37.23 in late trading.

Update:�Adobe management on the conference call projected Q1 revenue of $950 million to $1 billion, and EPS in a range of 26 cents to 32 cents. That is below the consensus for $1.07 billion and 56 cents.

For the full year, the company sees revenue of $4.1 billion, and EPS of $1.40. Again, that is below the consensus for $4.46 billion and $2.37 per share.

For the moment, shares are not falling on the weaker forecast, they are adding to gains, currently up over 6% in late trading at $37.70.

One thing that may be encouraging to users is that management said it expects the number of Creative Cloud subscribers at the end of next fiscal year to be about 1.25 billion, and that as a result, it will “effectively transition approximately $690 million of reported perpetual revenue to subscription next year, and to exit the year with a total annual run rate of approximately $685 million.”