Mark Garrett
Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open
In the first quarter of FY ‘15, Adobe achieved revenue of $1.109 billion above the high end of our targeted range. GAAP diluted earnings per share in Q1 were $0.17 and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.44. During the quarter, we closed the acquisition of Fotolia which contributed $7 million in revenue in Q1 and was not material to non-GAAP earnings per share. Highlights in our first quarter include, delivering revenue above the high end of our targeted revenue range; achieving 28% year-over-year growth in net new subscriptions to Creative Cloud; closing the acquisition of Fotolia, which when combined with other creative marketplace services we offer, increases our creative addressable market by $4 billion, Adobe Marketing Cloud revenue of $311 million and exiting Q1 with a record 70% recurring revenue. In Digital Media, we achieved revenue of $703 million. This segment has two major components of revenue, our creative family of products and our Adobe Document Cloud products. In our creative business, we exited Q1 with 3,971 million Creative Cloud subscriptions. Net new Creative Cloud subscriptions increased by 517,000 in Q1, consistent with our expectations given Q1 seasonality. Retention of Creative Cloud subscriptions, including renewals after promotional pricing expiration, continues to track ahead of our initial projections. Q1 adoption of Creative Cloud for teams grew substantially on a year-over-year basis, and we are building a healthy Enterprise Term License Agreement or ETLA pipeline. Average revenue per user, or ARPU, within each of our Creative Cloud offerings maintained steady levels, consistent with results over the past year. Blended ARPU across all Creative Cloud offerings declined slightly as a result of mix. As we discussed last week at the Financial Analyst Briefing at Summit, Creative Cloud Single Apps and the Creative Cloud Photography Plan are expanding our market opportunity through the addition of new customers, and create the potential for higher ARR in the future via ARPU-enhancing services such as Fotolia, and upsell to higher-tiered Creative Cloud offerings. Consistent with our expectations, creative ARR grew to $1.79 billion, an increase of $180 million quarter-over-quarter. As a reminder, we revalued ARR exiting FY2014 based on December 2014 currency rates. With Document Services, in advance of the Adobe Document Cloud launch, we achieved revenue of $193 million. Document Services ARR grew to $297 million exiting Q1. This ARR growth was driven by adoption of Acrobat ETLAs, subscriptions and Document Services including EchoSign. In our Digital Marketing segment, there are two components. The first is revenue from our Adobe Marketing Cloud offering, and our momentum as the leader in this market continued. Last week at Summit, we discussed growth with large customer engagements and multi-solution selling. Our announcements and the pipeline that gets built at our conference should continue this success in 2015. In Q1, we achieved Adobe Marketing Cloud revenue of $311 million, up 17% year-over-year and consistent with our expectations. The second component of our Digital Marketing segment is revenue from the LiveCycle and Connect businesses, which contributed $46 million in Q1 revenue, consistent with our expectations. Print and Publishing segment revenue was $49 million in Q1. Geographically, we experienced stable demand across our major geographies. From a quarter-over-quarter currency perspective, FX decreased revenue by $17 million. We had $24 million in hedge gains in Q1 FY15, versus $12 million in hedge gains in Q4 FY14. Thus, the net sequential currency decrease to revenue considering hedging gains was $5 million. From a year-over-year currency perspective, FX decreased revenue by $26 million. Considering the $24 million in hedge gains in Q1 FY15, versus $3 million in hedge gains in Q1 FY14, the net year-over-year currency decrease to revenue considering hedging gains was $5 million. In Q1, Adobe’s effective tax rate was 48% on a GAAP basis and 21% on a non-GAAP basis. The GAAP rate was higher primarily due to tax costs associated with licensing acquired company assets to Adobe’s trading companies. These one-time costs were partially offset by tax benefits related to the retroactive reinstatement of the U.S. R&D credit in December 2014. Employees at the end of Q1 totaled 12,698 versus 12,499 at the end of last quarter. Our trade DSO was 44 days, which compares to 46 days in the year go quarter, and 50 days last quarter. Cash flow from operations was $183 million in the quarter. The sequential decline from Q4 is consistent with previous first quarters since prior year annual bonuses and commissions are paid in Q1, as well as prepayments of certain employee fringe benefits for the current year. Deferred revenue grew to $1.18 billion, up 34% year-over-year. Our ending cash and short-term investment position was $3.18 billion, compared to $3.74 billion at the end of Q4. The primary driver of this decline was the acquisition of Fotolia which closed during the quarter. In Q1, we repurchased approximately 2.4 million shares at a cost of $174 million. In January, our Board of Directors approved a new stock repurchase program granting us the authority to repurchase an additional $2 billion of common stock through the end of FY 2017. Now, I would like to provide our financial outlook. In Q2 of FY'15, we are targeting a revenue range of $1.125 billion to $1.175 billion. Assuming the midpoint of our Q2 revenue range, we are targeting total Digital Media and Adobe Marketing Cloud revenue to grow sequentially. We also expect LiveCycle and Connect revenue, and Print and Publishing revenue to be relatively flat. During the quarter, we expect to add more net new Creative Cloud subscriptions and Digital Media ARR than what was achieved in Q1, and we continue to expect both to grow sequentially in the third and fourth quarters. We are targeting our Q2 share count to be 508 million to 510 million shares. We are targeting net non-operating expense to be between $15 million and $17 million on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. We are targeting a Q2 tax rate of approximately 24% on a GAAP basis and 21% on a non-GAAP basis. These targets yield a Q2 GAAP earnings per share range of $0.20 to $0.25 per share, and a Q2 non-GAAP earnings per share range of $0.41 to $0.47. We’re pleased with our performance in Q1, and we’re off to a great start for the year. Mike?