Adobe Q4 beats estimates as Creative, Marketing clouds fuel growth

Adobe Systems published its fourth-quarter and fiscal 2014 earnings after the bell on Thursday, and the results handily beat targets.

The creative software giant reported a net income of $73.3 million, or 14 cents per share (statement).

Non-GAAP earnings were 36 cents per share on a revenue of $1.073 billion.

Wall Street was looking for earnings of 30 cents per share but with revenue of $1.06 billion.

For the fiscal year, Adobe achieved revenue of $4.147 billion with non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.29.

Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive of Adobe, reflected on the quarter in prepared remarks:

Adobe had an outstanding 2014. Creative Cloud adoption outpaced expectations and the acquisition of Fotolia will add a vibrant marketplace for our customers. Adobe Marketing Cloud, the leader in the explosive digital marketing category, continued to drive strong bookings at the world's biggest brands, agencies and media companies.

Adobe says it now has 3.454 million paying Creative Cloud subscribers, with 644,000 coming in during the fourth quarter alone. That's up from the 2.81 million paying subscribers it reported last quarter.

Adobe followed up with an announcement that it plans to acquire Fotolia, a marketplace for purchasing stock content. Adobe says it will integrate Fotolia into Adobe Creative Cloud, giving users access to more than 34 million images and videos within the Fotolia database. Financial terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

Mark Garrett, Adobe's executive vice president and CFO, was optimistic about the company's financial prospects in 2015, and said he expects revenue and earnings to grow sequentially, every quarter, for the year.