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Shantanu Narayen is Adobe's chief executive, credited with shifting the company from packaged software to a subscription-based business model.
Adobe's freemium creative base passed 100 million users, up more than 70 per cent, and management guided total ARR growth to 10.2 per cent for the year while third-quarter revenue grew 13 per cent.
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Adobe reported record third-quarter revenue of $6.76bn and its billionth monthly active user on September 10. By Shantanu Narayen's own split, freemium expansion explains only about half of the lowered ARR outlook.
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Executives put annualized revenue from Adobe's AI-first products above $650 million after more than 150 percent growth in a year. That is 2.4 percent of the $27.50 billion recurring base, and the fourth-quarter revenue midpoint landed under consensus.
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Adobe's August quarter cleared analyst estimates by about 1 per cent on revenue and 0.8 per cent on adjusted earnings, and the stock fell more than 2 per cent after hours once the guidance was in front of investors.
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Anil Chakravarthy takes over on 1 December with a record built on Adobe Experience Platform, Workfront and Semrush, so the case that the board is ranking enterprise plumbing over creative tools rests on that CV rather than on anything it said.
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