ADOBE INC. (ADBE)
SIC breadcrumb: Services > Business Services > SIC 7372 Services-Prepackaged Software
SEC company page: https://www.sec.gov/edgar/browse/?CIK=796343. Latest filing source: 0000796343-26-000003.
Informational only. Descriptive public-record data — not a rating, forecast, or investment advice. See Disclaimer.
At a glance
- Revenue
- 23,769,000,000 USD verified
- Net income
- 7,130,000,000 USD verified
- Assets
- 29,496,000,000 USD verified
- Free cash flow
- 9,852,000,000 USD computed
- Net margin
- 30.00% computed
- Operating margin
- 36.63% computed
- Revenue YoY
- +10.53% computed
- ROE
- 61.34% computed
Peer & cluster context
Peer comparisons including ADBE
- Large-cap software and SaaS: peer review · market-risk page
Peer percentile fingerprint
Percentile = share of the N covered peers reporting that ratio whose value is lower (ties counted half); computed among grepcent-covered companies in SIC industry 7372 Services-Prepackaged Software, not the whole market. A higher percentile means a higher value of the ratio, not a better company. Ratios with fewer than 8 reporting peers are omitted. Latest reported values per company; fiscal periods may differ. Descriptive arithmetic - not a score, rating, or ranking.
Selected Fundamentals
| Metric | Value | Unit | FY | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 23,769,000,000 | USD | 2025 | 2026-01-15 |
| Net income | 7,130,000,000 | USD | 2025 | 2026-01-15 |
| Assets | 29,496,000,000 | USD | 2025 | 2026-01-15 |
Financials
Annual standardized facts from SEC companyfacts as of latest extracted filing date 2026-01-15. Source: https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000796343.json. Derived margins, ratios, and free cash flow are computed from the extracted annual SEC facts.
| Metric | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 5,854,430,000 | 7,301,505,000 | 9,030,000,000 | 11,171,000,000 | 12,868,000,000 | 15,785,000,000 | 17,606,000,000 | 19,409,000,000 | 21,505,000,000 | 23,769,000,000 |
| Net income | 1,168,782,000 | 1,693,954,000 | 2,591,000,000 | 2,951,000,000 | 5,260,000,000 | 4,822,000,000 | 4,756,000,000 | 5,428,000,000 | 5,560,000,000 | 7,130,000,000 |
| Operating income | 1,493,602,000 | 2,168,095,000 | 2,840,000,000 | 3,268,000,000 | 4,237,000,000 | 5,802,000,000 | 6,098,000,000 | 6,650,000,000 | 6,741,000,000 | 8,706,000,000 |
| Gross profit | 5,034,522,000 | 6,291,014,000 | 7,835,000,000 | 9,498,000,000 | 11,146,000,000 | 13,920,000,000 | 15,441,000,000 | 17,055,000,000 | 19,147,000,000 | 21,218,000,000 |
| Diluted EPS | 2.32 | 3.38 | 5.20 | 6.00 | 10.83 | 10.02 | 10.10 | 11.82 | 12.36 | 16.70 |
| Operating cash flow | 2,199,728,000 | 2,912,853,000 | 4,029,000,000 | 4,422,000,000 | 5,727,000,000 | 7,230,000,000 | 7,838,000,000 | 7,302,000,000 | 8,056,000,000 | 10,031,000,000 |
| Capital expenditures | 203,805,000 | 178,122,000 | 267,000,000 | 395,000,000 | 419,000,000 | 348,000,000 | 442,000,000 | 360,000,000 | 183,000,000 | 179,000,000 |
| Share buybacks | 1,075,000,000 | 1,100,000,000 | 2,050,000,000 | 2,750,000,000 | 3,050,000,000 | 3,950,000,000 | 6,550,000,000 | 4,400,000,000 | 9,500,000,000 | 11,281,000,000 |
| Assets | 12,697,246,000 | 14,535,556,000 | 18,768,682,000 | 20,762,000,000 | 24,284,000,000 | 27,241,000,000 | 27,165,000,000 | 29,779,000,000 | 30,230,000,000 | 29,496,000,000 |
| Liabilities | 5,272,411,000 | 6,075,687,000 | 9,406,568,000 | 10,232,000,000 | 11,020,000,000 | 12,444,000,000 | 13,114,000,000 | 13,261,000,000 | 16,125,000,000 | 17,873,000,000 |
| Stockholders' equity | 7,424,835,000 | 8,459,000,000 | 9,362,000,000 | 10,530,000,000 | 13,264,000,000 | 14,797,000,000 | 14,051,000,000 | 16,518,000,000 | 14,105,000,000 | 11,623,000,000 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 1,011,315,000 | 2,306,000,000 | 1,643,000,000 | 2,650,000,000 | 4,478,000,000 | 3,844,000,000 | 4,236,000,000 | 7,141,000,000 | 7,613,000,000 | 5,431,000,000 |
| Free cash flow | 1,995,923,000 | 2,734,731,000 | 3,762,000,000 | 4,027,000,000 | 5,308,000,000 | 6,882,000,000 | 7,396,000,000 | 6,942,000,000 | 7,873,000,000 | 9,852,000,000 |
Ratios
| Metric | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net margin | 19.96% | 23.20% | 28.69% | 26.42% | 40.88% | 30.55% | 27.01% | 27.97% | 25.85% | 30.00% |
| Operating margin | 25.51% | 29.69% | 31.45% | 29.25% | 32.93% | 36.76% | 34.64% | 34.26% | 31.35% | 36.63% |
| Return on equity | 15.74% | 20.03% | 27.68% | 28.02% | 39.66% | 32.59% | 33.85% | 32.86% | 39.42% | 61.34% |
| Return on assets | 9.21% | 11.65% | 13.80% | 14.21% | 21.66% | 17.70% | 17.51% | 18.23% | 18.39% | 24.17% |
| Liabilities / equity | 0.71 | 0.72 | 1.00 | 0.97 | 0.83 | 0.84 | 0.93 | 0.80 | 1.14 | 1.54 |
| Current ratio | 2.08 | 2.05 | 1.13 | 0.79 | 1.48 | 1.25 | 1.11 | 1.34 | 1.07 | 1.00 |
Industry Peer Context
Net margin peer context
Operating margin peer context
ROE peer context
ROA peer context
Financial Bridges
Income statement bridge from reported figures
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts FY 2025. Revenue: accession 0000796343-26-000003; concept Revenues; source concepts us-gaap:Revenues | Gross profit: accession 0000796343-26-000003; concept GrossProfit; source concepts us-gaap:GrossProfit | Operating income: accession 0000796343-26-000003; concept OperatingIncomeLoss; source concepts us-gaap:OperatingIncomeLoss | Net income: accession 0000796343-26-000003; concept NetIncomeLoss; source concepts us-gaap:NetIncomeLoss
Free cash flow = operating cash flow - capital expenditures
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts FY 2025. Operating cash flow: accession 0000796343-26-000003; concept NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities; source concepts us-gaap:NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities | Capital expenditures: accession 0000796343-26-000003; concept PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment; source concepts us-gaap:PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment | Free cash flow: accession 0000796343-26-000003; concept NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities - PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment; source concepts us-gaap:NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities; us-gaap:PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment
Financial Charts
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: Revenues. Source concepts: us-gaap:Revenues.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: NetIncomeLoss. Source concepts: us-gaap:NetIncomeLoss.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: OperatingIncomeLoss. Source concepts: us-gaap:OperatingIncomeLoss.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: GrossProfit. Source concepts: us-gaap:GrossProfit.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: EarningsPerShareDiluted. Source concepts: us-gaap:EarningsPerShareDiluted.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities. Source concepts: us-gaap:NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment. Source concepts: us-gaap:PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: PaymentsForRepurchaseOfCommonStock. Source concepts: us-gaap:PaymentsForRepurchaseOfCommonStock.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: Assets. Source concepts: us-gaap:Assets.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: Liabilities. Source concepts: us-gaap:Liabilities.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: StockholdersEquity. Source concepts: us-gaap:StockholdersEquity.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue. Source concepts: us-gaap:CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2025 ended 2025-11-28; accession 0000796343-26-000003; filed 2026-01-15. Concept: NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities - PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment. Source concepts: us-gaap:NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities; us-gaap:PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment.
As-reported value updates
Quarterly
Quarterly standardized facts from SEC companyfacts as of latest extracted filing date 2026-06-15. Source: https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000796343.json.
| Quarter | End Date | Revenue | Net Income | Diluted EPS | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-Q3 | 2022-09-02 | 2.42 | reported discrete quarter | ||
| 2023-Q1 | 2023-03-03 | 2.71 | reported discrete quarter | ||
| 2023-Q2 | 2023-06-02 | 2.82 | reported discrete quarter | ||
| 2023-Q3 | 2023-09-01 | 4,890,000,000 | 1,403,000,000 | 3.05 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2023-Q4 | 2023-12-01 | 5,048,000,000 | 1,483,000,000 | derived Q4 = FY annual - nine-month YTD | |
| 2024-Q1 | 2024-03-01 | 5,182,000,000 | 620,000,000 | 1.36 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2024-Q2 | 2024-05-31 | 5,309,000,000 | 1,573,000,000 | 3.49 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2024-Q3 | 2024-08-30 | 5,408,000,000 | 1,684,000,000 | 3.76 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2024-Q4 | 2024-11-29 | 5,606,000,000 | 1,683,000,000 | derived Q4 = FY annual - nine-month YTD | |
| 2025-Q1 | 2025-02-28 | 5,714,000,000 | 1,811,000,000 | 4.14 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2025-Q2 | 2025-05-30 | 5,873,000,000 | 1,691,000,000 | 3.94 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2025-Q3 | 2025-08-29 | 5,988,000,000 | 1,772,000,000 | 4.18 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2025-Q4 | 2025-11-28 | 6,194,000,000 | 1,856,000,000 | derived Q4 = FY annual - nine-month YTD | |
| 2026-Q1 | 2026-02-27 | 6,398,000,000 | 1,889,000,000 | 4.60 | reported discrete quarter |
| 2026-Q2 | 2026-05-29 | 6,618,000,000 | 1,712,000,000 | 4.25 | reported discrete quarter |
Quarterly Charts
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2026 ended 2026-05-29; accession 0000796343-26-000112; filed 2026-06-15. Concept: Revenues. Source concepts: us-gaap:Revenues.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2026 ended 2026-05-29; accession 0000796343-26-000112; filed 2026-06-15. Concept: NetIncomeLoss. Source concepts: us-gaap:NetIncomeLoss.
Figure provenance: SEC companyfacts. Latest point: FY 2026 ended 2026-05-29; accession 0000796343-26-000112; filed 2026-06-15. Concept: EarningsPerShareDiluted. Source concepts: us-gaap:EarningsPerShareDiluted.
Business
Read ADBE's verbatim Item 1 Business section from its latest 10-K: Business.
Risk Factors
Read ADBE's verbatim Item 1A Risk Factors from its latest 10-K: Risk Factors.
Latest quarter (10-Q)
Latest 10-Q source: 0000796343-26-000112.
ITEM 2. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the condensed consolidated financial statements and notes thereto.
In addition to historical information, this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding product plans, future growth, market opportunities, including artificial intelligence (“AI”) opportunities, customer needs, business and finance strategies, macroeconomic conditions, fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, strategic investments, industry positioning, customer acquisition and retention, the amount of annualized recurring revenue and revenue growth. In addition, when used in this report, the words “will,” “expects,” “could,” “would,” “may,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “targets,” “estimates,” “continues” and similar expressions, as well as statements regarding our focus for the future, are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. Each of the forward-looking statements we make in this report involves risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors” in Part II, Item 1A of this report. The risks described herein and in other documents we file from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, should be carefully reviewed. Undue reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to publicly release any revisions to the forward-looking statements or reflect events or circumstances after the date of this document, except as required by law.
“Adobe,” “Acrobat,” “Photoshop,” “Adobe Firefly,” “Adobe GenStudio” and other trademarks of ours appearing in this report are our property. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
BUSINESS OVERVIEW
Adobe’s mission is to empower everyone to create. We build innovative platforms and tools that unleash creativity, productivity and personalized customer experiences. For over four decades, our innovations have transformed how people everywhere engage across all types of media. Adobe’s solutions are the foundation of digital experiences, starting with the first creative spark, to the creation and development of all content and media, to the personalized delivery across every channel. We have operations in the Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa (“EMEA”); and Asia-Pacific (“APAC”).
Our focus revolves around serving our customer audiences: business professionals, consumers, creators, creative professionals and marketing professionals. The massive opportunity and evolving role of creativity across roles and industries have driven Adobe’s growth over the past four decades and are expected to continue to drive our growth going forward as we evolve our solutions and routes to market to anticipate the growing needs of our customers. In the AI era, we are harnessing the power of AI across our solutions by bringing together our commercially safe first-party and leading partner AI models best suited for the job; deploying conversational and agentic capabilities across offerings; ensuring ubiquity on all surfaces; delivering trusted and secure solutions; and expanding our global presence.
Adobe’s value proposition is to empower creative expression across multiple media types and channels, at scale, in a collaborative and secure environment, with an end-to-end integrated platform spanning ideation, creation, production and activation. We power the entire content workflow with Adobe’s AI platform, which offers customers brand safety, compliance, intellectual property protection, and reliability.
In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, we combined our former segments—Digital Media, Digital Experience and Publishing and Advertising—into a single operating and reportable segment due to changes in how management evaluates results and allocates resources, reflecting the Company’s shift to unified selling motions and integrated product innovation.
OPERATIONS OVERVIEW
In our second quarter of fiscal 2026, we experienced strong demand across our portfolio of subscription-based solutions, driven by transformative and customer-focused product innovation. As we execute on our long-term growth initiatives, with emphasis on delivering value through AI-powered and highly differentiated solutions to meet the needs of our diverse and expanding customer base, we have continued to experience growth in software-based subscription revenue.
Our offerings help our customers—spanning business professionals, consumers, creators, creative professionals and marketing professionals—to be more creative, productive and successful. We are driving continued business success through audience-specific product innovation and go-to-market strategy focused on two customer groups: Business Professionals & Consumers and Creative & Marketing Professionals.
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Creative & Marketing Professionals
Our solutions targeted toward the Creative & Marketing Professionals customer group consist of our customer experience orchestration offerings as well as Creative Cloud flagship apps such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and Premiere. Creators, creative professionals and marketing professionals require agile and comprehensive solutions to create high volumes of compelling content, infused with commercially safe AI capabilities. For creators and creative professionals, we offer an end-to-end, ideation-to-creation platform powered by our commercially safe Adobe Firefly models and an expansive partner model ecosystem, offering customers choice and flexibility. For marketing professionals, we unify creative production and marketing execution with content supply chain solutions that deliver end-to-end customer experience orchestration solutions, automate workflows and personalize experiences and engagement at scale across channels. Our customer experience orchestration solutions deliver actionable data, with products such as Adobe Analytics and Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform; optimize personalized content delivery, with products such as Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Commerce and Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing; and manage customer journeys, with products such as Adobe Marketo Engage and Adobe Campaign. Adobe Experience Platform is a customer data platform that serves as a foundation in enterprises for digital customer engagement by unifying our comprehensive set of AI-powered apps and agents to build, deliver, and optimize marketing campaigns and customer experiences. Adobe’s integrated solutions, such as GenStudio and Firefly Services, bridge the gap between content creation and marketing execution, enabling seamless collaboration and efficiency across the entire content lifecycle spanning content ideation, creation, production and activation. In addition, our acquisition of Semrush in April 2026 enhances our Adobe Experience Manager offerings with search engine optimization and generative engine optimization solutions.
Creative & Marketing Professionals customer group subscription revenue was $4.54 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $4.02 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, representing 13% year-over-year growth.
Business Professionals & Consumers
Our solutions targeted toward the Business Professionals & Consumers customer group consist of Adobe Acrobat offerings and Adobe Express. Business professionals and consumers desire web and mobile apps with easy-to-use AI capabilities that enable them to create, collaborate and derive insights across multiple media types and channels. Our Adobe Acrobat offerings fuel document productivity, enabling users to create, collaborate, review, approve, sign and track documents at home, in the office and across devices. Acrobat AI Assistant provides users with conversational experiences to quickly and accurately derive insights within individual documents, or across documents in PDF Spaces. Adobe Express is our web and mobile app designed to enable a broad spectrum of users, including novice content creators and communicators, to create, edit and customize content quickly and easily with content-first, task-based solutions. Acrobat Studio is an all-in-one platform for productivity and creation that unites Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Express and AI agents to enable users to quickly, easily and intuitively work.
Business Professionals & Consumers customer group subscription revenue was $1.85 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $1.60 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, representing 16% year-over-year growth.
Customer-Focused Strategy
Our success will be achieved through continued acquisition and retention of our customer base by delivering valuable new features and technologies to customers with our latest releases, including generative AI capabilities to enhance creativity, productivity and marketing, and expanding availability of our offerings across an increasing number of surfaces. As part of our customer-focused strategy, we utilize a data-driven operating model and tailored go-to-market motion to raise awareness of our products and drive customer acquisition, engagement and retention. Overall, our strategy is designed to increase our revenue with existing users, continue to attract new customers, and grow our recurring and predictable revenue stream that is recognized ratably. Due to the nature of certain offerings which contain cross-product integrations or benefits, revenue attributable to certain product entitlements may be recognized in either customer group.
The key performance metric used by management to evaluate progress against our customer-focused strategy is Total Adobe Annualized Recurring Revenue (“ARR”), which represents the annual value of subscription contracts in the Creative & Marketing Professionals and Business Professionals & Consumers customer groups. We adjust our reported ARR on an annual basis, primarily to reflect any exchange rate changes. Our reported ARR results in the current fiscal year are based on currency rates set at the beginning of the year and held constant throughout the year for measurement purposes. Prior year ARR balances are also revalued at the new currency rates for comparative purposes.
Total Adobe ARR grew to $27.10 billion at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2026, representing 12.5% year-over-year growth, including approximately $480 million from the Semrush acquisition and further driven by strength in Creative Cloud Pro, Acrobat, and Adobe Experience Platform and related apps. Our success in driving growth in ARR has positively
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affected our revenue growth. Total customer group subscription revenue grew to $6.39 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $5.61 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, representing 14% year-over-year growth.
Macroeconomic Conditions
As a corporation with an extensive global footprint, we are subject to risks and exposures from the evolving macroeconomic environment, including the effects of increased global inflationary pressures and interest rates, fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, potential economic slowdowns or recessions and geopolitical pressures, including the unknown impacts of current and future trade regulations. We continuously monitor the direct and indirect impacts of these circumstances on our business and financial results.
While our revenue and earnings are relatively predictable as a result of our subscription-based business model, the broader
[Excerpt truncated for page length; source filing is linked above.]
Latest 10-K MD&A (excerpt)
Latest 10-K Item 7 source: 0000796343-26-000003. The complete FY 2025 MD&A is published at /company/ADBE/mda/fy2025/.
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our Consolidated Financial Statements and Notes thereto. Discussion regarding our financial condition and results of operations for fiscal 2024 as compared to fiscal 2023 is included in Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended November 29, 2024, filed with the SEC on January 13, 2025.
CRITICAL ACCOUNTING POLICIES AND ESTIMATES
In preparing our Consolidated Financial Statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”) and pursuant to the rules and regulations of the SEC, we make assumptions, judgments and estimates that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses, and related disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities. We base our assumptions, judgments and estimates on historical experience and various other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results could differ materially from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions. We evaluate our assumptions, judgments and estimates on a regular basis. We also discuss our critical accounting policies and estimates with the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors.
We believe that the assumptions, judgments and estimates involved in the accounting for revenue recognition and income taxes have the greatest potential impact on our Consolidated Financial Statements. These areas are key components of our results of operations and are based on complex rules requiring us to make judgments and estimates, and consequently, we consider these to be our critical accounting policies. Historically, our assumptions, judgments and estimates relative to our critical accounting policies have not differed materially from actual results.
Revenue Recognition
Our contracts with customers may include promises to transfer multiple products and services. Determining whether products and services are distinct performance obligations to be accounted for separately or combined as part of a single performance obligation may require significant judgment, primarily for our solutions that include both on-premise and/or on-device software licenses and cloud services. We have concluded that certain subscription offerings, which include both on-premise/on-device software licenses and cloud services, represent a single, highly integrated performance obligation. This conclusion reflects the high degree of integration, interdependency and interrelation between the software and the cloud services, such that customers receive the intended benefit only when these components operate together. The nature of our promise to customers is to deliver a complete end-to-end solution, and the intended functionality and workflow efficiencies cannot be obtained from either the software or the cloud services on a standalone basis. Accordingly, revenue for these offerings is recognized ratably over the subscription period during which the cloud services are provided.
Accounting for Income Taxes
We use the asset and liability method of accounting for income taxes. Under this method, income tax expense is recognized for the amount of taxes payable or refundable for the current year. In addition, deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the expected future tax consequences of temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities, and for tax loss and credit carryforwards. Significant judgment is required in determining our current provision for income taxes and deferred tax assets or liabilities. We record a valuation allowance to reduce deferred tax assets to an amount for which realization is more likely than not.
Our assumptions, judgments and estimates relative to the current provision for income taxes take into account our interpretation and application of current tax laws and possible outcomes of current and future examinations conducted by domestic and foreign tax authorities. We have established reserves for income taxes to address potential exposures involving tax positions that could be challenged by tax authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes and associated reserves. To the extent that the final determination of any of these examinations is different from the amounts recorded, such differences will affect the provision for income taxes and the effective tax rate in the period in which such determination is made.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
See Note 1 of our Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for information regarding recent accounting pronouncements that are of significance or potential significance to us.
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RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
Overview of Fiscal 2025
For our fiscal 2025, we experienced strong demand across our Digital Media and Digital Experience offerings, driven by transformative and customer-focused product innovation. As we execute on our long-term growth initiatives, with emphasis on delivering value through AI-powered and highly differentiated solutions to meet the needs of our diverse and expanding customer base, we have continued to experience growth in software-based subscription revenue across our portfolio of offerings.
Digital Media
Our Digital Media products, services and solutions help users create, design and publish rich content and 3D experiences, and improve productivity by transforming how they view, share and collaborate on documents and content. These offerings include our Creative Cloud flagship applications (“apps”) such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects; as well as Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Express, Adobe Firefly and many more products, which are available across surfaces and platforms as desktop tools, web and mobile apps and cloud-based services. Adobe Express is our web and mobile app designed to enable a broad spectrum of users, including novice content creators and communicators, to create, edit and customize content quickly and easily with content first, task-based solutions. Our Adobe Acrobat offerings fuel document productivity, enabling users to create, collaborate, review, approve, sign and track documents at home, in the office and across devices. AI innovation is deeply infused into our Digital Media solutions, including through Adobe Firefly-powered generative AI features available across our Creative Cloud flagship apps, and through Acrobat AI Assistant, a generative AI-powered conversational interface designed to enhance document experiences. In August 2025, we released Acrobat Studio, which brings together Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Express and AI agents to further unite productivity and creativity, empowering users to quickly derive insights from their documents and create visually compelling content. Our Digital Media customers include business professionals, consumers, creative professionals, creators and marketing professionals.
During fiscal 2025, Annualized Recurring Revenue (“ARR”) was the key performance metric our management used to assess the health and trajectory of our overall Digital Media segment. Digital Media ARR was calculated as the sum of the annual value of Digital Media subscriptions and services and the annual value of Digital Media Enterprise Term License Agreements.
Digital Media ARR grew to $19.20 billion at the end of fiscal 2025, representing 11.5% year-over-year growth. Our success in driving growth in ARR has positively affected our revenue growth. Digital Media segment revenue grew to $17.65 billion in fiscal 2025, up from $15.86 billion in fiscal 2024, representing 11% year-over-year growth.
Digital Experience
Our Digital Experience apps and services are designed to accelerate customer experience orchestration at scale and supply intelligence for businesses of any size in any industry. Digital Experience is comprised of solutions to deliver actionable data, with products such as Adobe Analytics and Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform; optimize personalized content delivery, with products such as Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Commerce and Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing; and manage customer journeys, with products such as Adobe Marketo Engage and Adobe Campaign. Our differentiation and competitive advantage are strengthened by our ability to use the Adobe Experience Platform to integrate our comprehensive set of solutions and our ability to embed AI into our product portfolio, such as with our Adobe Experience Platform AI Assistant, a generative AI-powered conversational interface designed to help customers automate workflows and generate new audiences and journeys. Our Digital Experience customers include marketing professionals such as brand managers, channel marketers and campaign strategists.
Digital Experience revenue was $5.86 billion in fiscal 2025, up from $5.37 billion in fiscal 2024, representing 9% year-over-year growth. Subscription revenue grew to $5.41 billion in fiscal 2025, up from $4.86 billion in fiscal 2024, representing 11% year-over-year growth.
Customer-Focused Strategy
Our customers often are involved in workflows that integrate multiple Adobe products across both segments. By combining the creativity of our Digital Media business with the science of our Digital Experience business, such as with our Adobe GenStudio solutions, we help our customers to more efficiently and effectively make, manage, measure and monetize their content across every channel with an end-to-end workflow.
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Table of Contents
Spanning both our Digital Media and Digital Experience segments, we drove continued business success through audience-specific product innovation and go-to-market strategy focused on the following two customer groups:
•Business Professionals & Consumers desire web and mobile apps with easy-to-use AI capabilities, and are increasingly benefiting from using Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Express. Revenue associated with the Business Professionals & Consumers customer group consists of Adobe Acrobat offerings and Adobe Express, all of which are part of Digital Media.
•Creative & Marketing Professionals require agile and comprehensive solutions to create high volumes of compelling content, infused with commercially safe AI capabilities; and are benefiting from investments in powerful, integrated workflows through offerings such as Adobe Firefly and Adobe GenStudio. Revenue associated with the Creative & Marketing Professionals customer group consists of Digital Experience offerings as well as Creative Cloud flagship apps such as Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator within Digital Media.
Due to the nature of certain offerings which contain cross-product integrations or benefits, revenue attributable to certain product entitlements may be recognized in either customer group.
By viewing the business through this lens, we can more effectively execute our long-term growth strategies. Our success will be achieved through continued acquisition and retention of our customer base by delivering valuable new features and technologies to customers with our latest releases, including generative AI capabilities to enhance creativity, productivity and marketing, and expanding availability of our offerings across an increasing number of surfaces.
As part of our customer-focused strategy, we utilize a data-driven operating model and tailored go-to-market motion to raise awareness of our products and drive customer acquisition, engagement and retention. Overall, our strategy is designed to increase our revenue with existing users, continue to attract new customers, and grow our recurring and predictable revenue stream that is recognized ratably.
The key performance metric used by management to evaluate
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MD&A history
Prior-year 10-K MD&A spans are extracted from SEC filings with the same bounded parser used for the latest filing. Each year's full verbatim text is on its own sub-page.
Macro cross-references for ADBE
- PAYEMS - All Employees, Total Nonfarm
- CES0500000003 - Average Hourly Earnings of All Employees, Total Private
- DGS10 - Market Yield on U.S. Treasury Securities at 10-Year Constant Maturity