Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) — Company Research

Last Updated: 25 September 2026

Adobe keeps reporting double-digit revenue growth, but the stock trades on a single-digit multiple of forward non-GAAP earnings. On 10 September 2026 it reported record third-quarter revenue of $6,760m, up 13%, and raised its full-year targets for the third time. The same results showed net new annualised recurring revenue down roughly a third on a year earlier and remaining performance obligations growing only 8%. A week earlier the company had named Anil Chakravarthy to succeed Shantanu Narayen as Chief Executive from 1 December 2026, and the head of its creative business announced his departure. This report sets out what Adobe's SEC filings and press releases show: revenue, earnings, cash flow, debt, insider dealing and scheduled events. Every valuation figure is shown as a calculation.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Adobe Inc., headquartered in San Jose, California
Ticker / exchange	ADBE, Nasdaq Global Select Market
CEO / Leadership	Shantanu Narayen (Chair and CEO until 30 November 2026, then Executive Chair); Anil Chakravarthy (President and CEO from 1 December 2026); Steve Day (interim CFO since 15 June 2026)
Employees	31,360 at 28 November 2025 (FY2025 Form 10-K), split evenly between the US and the rest of the world
Revenue (FY2025)	$23,769m, up 10.5% year on year (fiscal year ended 28 November 2025)
Net income (FY2025, GAAP)	$7,130m; GAAP diluted EPS $16.70; non-GAAP diluted EPS $20.94
Revenue (trailing twelve months to 28 August 2026)	$25,970m
Market cap	~$93.0bn (389.2m shares outstanding at 18 September 2026 per the Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q cover, at the $238.93 close of 24 September 2026)
Total Adobe ARR	$27.50bn at the end of Q3 FY2026, up 11.2%, including roughly $480m acquired with Semrush
Dividend	None. Adobe returns cash through share repurchases; a new $25bn authorisation was approved on 21 April 2026
Most recent reported period	Q3 FY2026 (quarter ended 28 August 2026), reported 10 September 2026

Live price action for ADBE and the wider software sector can be followed on the ChartsView Live Charts page.

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Revenue growth has not broken: revenue has grown by at least 10% in every year since FY2021, reaching $23,769m in FY2025. Q3 FY2026 grew 13% to $6,760m, and management raised the FY2026 revenue target to $26.576bn to $26.626bn, up from an initial $25.90bn to $26.10bn.
• Cash conversion is exceptional: trailing operating cash flow was $10,806m against capital expenditure of only $214m. Adobe repurchased 26.1m shares in the first three quarters of FY2026 and still has about $24.55bn of authorisation left.
• AI revenue is now measurable: AI-first ARR exceeded $650m at the end of Q3 FY2026, up more than 150% year on year. Firefly ending ARR rose 40% quarter on quarter, and Acrobat AI Assistant monthly active users doubled over the quarter.
• Distribution at consumer scale: Adobe reports more than one billion monthly active users, over 900m across Acrobat and Express. Its creative and document tools are now available inside ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini and Slack, so it sits within rival AI platforms rather than outside them.
• Enterprise marketing stack is growing faster than the group: ending ARR for GenStudio, Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Experience Manager each grew more than 20% in Q3 FY2026. Semrush, closed on 28 April 2026, adds search and AI-visibility data to that stack.

Bear Case

• Forward indicators are slowing: net new ARR in Q3 FY2026 fell roughly 36% year on year, which management attributes to the shift towards freemium. Remaining performance obligations of $22.16bn grew only 8% and declined sequentially, and ending ARR growth for FY2026 is targeted at 10.2%.
• Leadership is changing at the top and below it: the CEO transition takes effect on 1 December 2026. David Wadhwani, who ran the creativity and productivity business, is leaving, and the company has had an interim CFO since Dan Durn departed on 15 June 2026.
• Generative AI lowers the barrier to entry: the FY2025 Form 10-K names failure to keep pace with AI, and competition from generative and agentic AI entrants, as its first two risk factors. Canva and Figma target the same designers, and Adobe itself now hosts third-party image and video models from OpenAI, Google, Runway and others inside Firefly.
• The departing CEO is a consistent seller: Shantanu Narayen's family trust sold 75,000 shares in April 2026 and 125,000 in September 2026, about $49.6m in total. By contrast, a director bought $1.95m of stock in June.
• Consumer-protection and impairment charges: Adobe agreed a $150m settlement of the US government's subscription-cancellation case in March 2026. It booked $92m of legal-matter charges in the first half of FY2026 and a $70m goodwill impairment on its Publishing and Advertising unit in Q2.

3. Business Segments

Adobe reported three segments through FY2025. The FY2025 split is below. From Q1 FY2026 the company became a single reportable segment and now presents subscription revenue by customer group instead. In FY2025, Business Professionals and Consumers subscription revenue was $6.50bn (+15%) and Creative and Marketing Professionals $16.30bn (+11%). In Q3 FY2026 the figures were $1.905bn (+16%) and $4.651bn (+13%).

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Digital Media	74.3% ($17.65bn, +11%)	Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Firefly), Document Cloud (Acrobat, Acrobat AI Assistant) and Adobe Express. Digital Media ARR was $19.20bn at FY2025 year end
Digital Experience	24.7% ($5.86bn, +9%)	Enterprise marketing software: Adobe Experience Platform, Experience Manager, Journey Optimizer, Analytics, Commerce and GenStudio. Subscription revenue was $5.41bn
Publishing and Advertising	~1.1% (~$0.26bn, derived as the residual)	Legacy products including e-learning, technical publishing, print and advertising technology. It took a $70m goodwill impairment in Q2 FY2026

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Almost all of Adobe's revenue is recurring subscriptions. Individuals and businesses pay monthly or annually for Creative Cloud, Acrobat and Express, and enterprises sign multi-year contracts for the Experience Cloud marketing platform. Adobe tracks the business through annualised recurring revenue, which reached $27.50bn at the end of Q3 FY2026. Because the software is delivered from the cloud, capital spending is tiny: $179m in FY2025 against $10,031m of operating cash flow.

Where the durable advantage sits. Adobe's file formats (PDF, PSD, AI) are industry standards, and creative professionals are trained and hired on its tools. Agencies and enterprises build their workflows around Creative Cloud and Experience Manager, which makes switching costly. Its Firefly models are trained on licensed content, which lets enterprise customers use generated assets commercially with indemnification. With more than one billion monthly active users, Adobe has a large funnel into which it can place AI features.

Where the model is fragile. Generative AI lets people with no Adobe training produce images, video and documents, which weakens the skills barrier that protected the professional franchise. Adobe has responded by offering free tiers and paying for third-party models inside its own products. That can widen the funnel but also dilutes growth in new recurring revenue, as Q3 FY2026 net new ARR shows. It also makes Adobe partly dependent on the model providers it competes with.

5. Financial Health

All figures come from Adobe's quarterly earnings releases and Form 10-K and 10-Q filings, cross-checked against its SEC XBRL data. Fiscal years end on the Friday closest to 30 November, and FY2021 contained 53 weeks. Adobe pays no dividend, so that column reads nil throughout.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	15,785	+22.7%	$10.02	$12.48	Nil	$4,123m
FY2022	17,606	+11.5%	$10.10	$13.71	Nil	$3,629m
FY2023	19,409	+10.2%	$11.82	$16.07	Nil	$3,634m
FY2024	21,505	+10.8%	$12.36	$18.42	Nil	$4,129m
FY2025	23,769	+10.5%	$16.70	$20.94	Nil	$6,210m

† Long-term debt is the non-current portion of debt at fiscal year end. The current portion was a further $500m at FY2022, $1,499m at FY2024 and nil at FY2025. At 28 August 2026 total debt was $6,363m, of which $1,597m was current and $4,766m non-current. ‡ Adjusted EPS is Adobe's own non-GAAP diluted EPS. It excludes stock-based compensation, amortisation of intangibles and certain other items. FY2024 GAAP EPS includes the $1bn Figma merger termination fee.

Cash generation and balance sheet: FY2025 operating cash flow was $10,031m, capital expenditure $179m and depreciation and amortisation $818m. GAAP operating income was $8,706m and non-GAAP operating income $10,986m. For the twelve months to 28 August 2026, operating cash flow was $10,806m, capital expenditure $214m and depreciation and amortisation $766m. At 28 August 2026 cash and equivalents were $4,359m and short-term investments $1,280m, a total of $5,639m against $6,363m of debt. Net debt was therefore about $0.72bn, and stockholders' equity was $11,764m.

Quarter / Half	Revenue ($m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q3 FY2026	6,760	$6.13	$4.62
Q2 FY2026	6,618	$5.96	$4.25
Q1 FY2026	6,398	$6.06	$4.60
Q4 FY2025	6,194	$5.50	$4.45
Q3 FY2025	5,988	$5.31	$4.18
Q2 FY2025	5,873	$5.06	$3.94
Q1 FY2025	5,714	$5.08	$4.14
FY2025 total	23,769	$20.94	$16.70

Q3 FY2026 revenue rose 12.9% year on year, and GAAP operating income was $2,354m against $2,173m a year earlier. Management guided Q4 FY2026 revenue to $6.80bn to $6.85bn, GAAP EPS to $4.65 to $4.70 and non-GAAP EPS to $6.30 to $6.35. The full-year targets are GAAP EPS of $18.12 to $18.17 and non-GAAP EPS of $24.45 to $24.50.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	~$93.0bn (389.2m shares at the $238.93 close of 24 September 2026)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~13.3x (price $238.93 / trailing twelve-month GAAP diluted EPS $17.92, the sum of Q4 FY2025 to Q3 FY2026). On Adobe's non-GAAP EPS of $23.65 over the same four quarters the multiple is ~10.1x
P/E (forward)	~9.8x (price $238.93 / $24.475, the midpoint of management's FY2026 non-GAAP EPS target). On the GAAP EPS target midpoint of $18.145 the multiple is ~13.2x
P/S (TTM)	~3.6x (market cap $93.0bn / trailing revenue $25.97bn)
Enterprise value	~$93.7bn (market cap $93.0bn + total debt $6.36bn − cash and short-term investments $5.64bn, per the 28 August 2026 balance sheet)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~9.3x (EV $93.7bn / EBITDA $10.04bn; EBITDA = trailing GAAP operating income $9.27bn + depreciation and amortisation $0.77bn from the cash flow statement)
P/FCF	~8.8x (market cap $93.0bn / free cash flow $10.59bn; FCF = trailing operating cash flow $10.81bn − capital expenditure $0.21bn)
52-week high	$363.70 (28 October 2025)
52-week low	$190.12 (18 June 2026)
Short interest (% of float)	~4.8% of float, being 18.5m shares short against a float of about 388m at the 15 September 2026 settlement date (17.37m shares, 4.4% to 4.9% depending on the float definition used, at 31 August 2026)
Days to cover	~3.6 days at the 15 September 2026 settlement date (4.2 days at 31 August 2026)
Price/book	~7.9x (market cap $93.0bn / stockholders' equity $11.76bn at 28 August 2026)

The gap between GAAP and non-GAAP earnings comes mostly from stock-based compensation and acquisition amortisation. On either basis, the trailing multiples here are lower than the double-digit revenue growth in Section 5 would usually suggest. That gap between growth and valuation is what the bull and bear cases disagree about.

7. What Are They Building

Firefly and the creative agent. Firefly added native audio, music and speech generation in Q3 FY2026. Firefly Enterprise launched in July 2026 in Foundry, Graph and Creative Production editions, and Disney Imagineering said on 16 June 2026 that it is adopting Firefly Foundry. On 18 June 2026 Adobe extended its creative agent into Photoshop and Premiere and made it available inside ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini and Slack. Firefly also hosts partner models from OpenAI, Google, Runway, FLUX, Luma, Ideogram, Pika, ElevenLabs, Moonvalley and Topaz.

Acrobat as a productivity agent. The Acrobat Productivity Agent launched on 6 May 2026 and was expanded on 9 September 2026 to turn complex documents into interactive reports, slides, podcasts and knowledge bases. Acrobat capabilities are also offered in ChatGPT, Chrome, Claude, Edge and WhatsApp. Acrobat and Express together have more than 900m monthly active users.

Enterprise agentic AI. CX Enterprise and CX Enterprise Coworker were unveiled at Adobe Summit on 20 April 2026 and became generally available on 10 June 2026, with about 1,700 customers and early adopters. GenStudio for Commerce Media Networks followed on 17 June. Adobe Brand Visibility combines Adobe's LLM Optimizer with Semrush's AI-visibility data, built on a database of about 300m AI search prompts. Paid customers for the product doubled over the quarter.

Acquisitions. Semrush closed on 28 April 2026 for a total purchase price of $1,874m, adding about $480m of ARR. Topaz Labs, an AI image and video enhancement company, closed on 23 September 2026 for about $340m and will remain a standalone brand. The next set of product announcements is expected at Adobe MAX, which runs from 10 to 12 November 2026 in Miami Beach.

8. Competitive Landscape

Market capitalisations were re-checked live on 24 September 2026. Revenue figures come from each company's most recent full-year results release; fiscal years differ, so each is labelled.

Peer	Market cap (September 2026)	Key 2025 metric
Microsoft (MSFT)	~$3,697bn	FY2026 (to June 2026) revenue $331.8bn, up 18%; Copilot competes for document-productivity and image-generation users
Salesforce (CRM)	~$196.1bn	FY2026 (to January 2026) revenue $41.5bn, up 10%; the main rival to Adobe's Experience Cloud in marketing software
Intuit (INTU)	~$74.1bn	FY2026 (to July 2026) revenue $21.4bn, up 14%; competes for small-business marketing and productivity spend
Autodesk (ADSK)	~$44.2bn	FY2026 (to January 2026) revenue $7.21bn, up 18%; design software for engineering, construction and media
Figma (FIG)	~$11.4bn	FY2025 revenue $1.056bn, up 41%; collaborative interface design, and the subject of Adobe's terminated acquisition that cost it a $1bn fee in FY2024
Canva (private)	~$42bn (August 2025 secondary-sale valuation; not listed)	Roughly $4bn of annualised revenue, reported as growing about 35%

Adobe's revenue is larger than that of Autodesk, Figma and Canva combined, and comparable to Intuit's, yet its market value is only about a quarter higher than Intuit's. The competitive pressure is split in two. In creative tools, Canva and Figma attack from the low end and the collaborative end. In enterprise marketing, Salesforce and Microsoft compete for the same customer-data and campaign budgets as the Experience Cloud.

9. Insider Activity

Chair and CEO Shantanu Narayen accounts for most of the value sold in 2026, through the Narayen Family Trust. His Form 4 footnotes describe the sales as for tax and estate planning, and they do not state that the sales were made under a Rule 10b5-1 plan. Director David Ricks made the only open-market purchase of the year. The table is compiled from SEC Form 4 filings.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Shantanu Narayen (Chair and CEO)	16 Sep 2026	Sale (16 to 17 September, via family trust)	125,000	$250.76 average	~$31.3m	10b5-1 not stated; tax and estate planning
Jillian Forusz (SVP, Chief Accounting Officer)	29 Jul 2026	Sale	416	$264.33	~$0.11m	Not verified
David Ricks (Director)	25 Jun 2026	Open-market purchase	10,000	$194.51	~$1.95m	Discretionary
Jillian Forusz (SVP, Chief Accounting Officer)	30 Apr 2026	Sale	755	$246.25	~$0.19m	Not verified
Shantanu Narayen (Chair and CEO)	28 Apr 2026	Sale (via family trust)	75,000	$243.54	~$18.3m	10b5-1 not stated; tax and estate planning
Dan Durn (then EVP and CFO)	20 Apr 2026	Sale	1,336	$248.02	~$0.33m	Not verified
Dan Durn (then EVP and CFO)	27 Jan 2026	Option exercise and sale	1,646	$294.85	~$0.49m	Not verified

Narayen's 2026 sales total about $49.6m. They came in the months before he hands over the CEO role on 1 December 2026, when he becomes Executive Chair. Ricks bought within a week of the 52-week low of $190.12 set on 18 June 2026. That is the only insider buying on record this year.

10. Key Risks

• AI disruption of the core franchise: the FY2025 Form 10-K lists failure to innovate or keep pace with AI as its first risk factor. If generative and agentic tools make professional-grade output available without professional software, the value of Creative Cloud seats could fall faster than new AI revenue grows.
• Decelerating forward indicators: net new ARR fell about 36% year on year in Q3 FY2026, and remaining performance obligations grew just 8% and declined sequentially. Revenue growth usually lags these measures, so the effect on reported revenue may come later.
• Leadership transition: a new CEO takes over on 1 December 2026, the head of the largest business unit is leaving and the CFO role is filled on an interim basis. Strategy, capital allocation and guidance practice could all change under new management.
• Consumer-protection enforcement: the $150m settlement with the US government over subscription cancellation includes injunctions on disclosure and easy cancellation. These could raise churn in the consumer and prosumer base. Court entry of the stipulated order has not been confirmed in the filings reviewed.
• AI regulation, intellectual property and model dependence: the EU AI Act and training-data liability for third-party models hosted inside Adobe products are named risks. Adobe also relies increasingly on outside model providers and cloud compute, whose costs and access terms it does not control.
• Acquisition integration: Semrush ($1,874m) and Topaz Labs (~$340m) were bought in 2026. Goodwill of $1,251m was recognised on Semrush alone, and Adobe has already impaired $70m of goodwill in its Publishing and Advertising unit this year.
• Currency and macro exposure: about half of Adobe's employees and a large share of revenue are outside the US. Q3 FY2026 revenue growth was 13% reported against 12% in constant currency, so currency moves visibly affect reported results.

11. Recent Developments

• 23 Sep 2026 — Topaz Labs acquisition completed. Adobe closed the purchase of the AI image and video enhancement company for about $340m, mostly in cash, having announced the deal on 25 June 2026. Topaz remains a standalone brand and its models are already available in Firefly.
• 22 Sep 2026 — Jet2 agentic AI partnership announced. Adobe announced an agentic AI partnership with the airline and holiday company, adding to the enterprise customer list for its CX Enterprise tools.
• 16 Sep 2026 — CEO sold 125,000 shares. The Narayen Family Trust sold shares on 16 and 17 September at a weighted average of $250.76, about $31.3m in total, and the Form 4 footnote cites tax and estate planning.
• 10 Sep 2026 — Q3 FY2026 results: record revenue and raised targets, but slower forward indicators. Revenue was $6,760m (+13%) and non-GAAP EPS $6.13, with record Q3 operating cash flow of $2,523m and 9.5m shares repurchased for $2,232m. FY2026 targets were raised. Net new ARR fell about 36% year on year and remaining performance obligations grew 8%.
• 09 Sep 2026 — Acrobat Productivity Agent expanded. The agent can now turn complex documents into interactive reports, slide decks, podcasts and knowledge bases.
• 03 Sep 2026 — Anil Chakravarthy named next CEO. The President of Customer Experience Orchestration and former Informatica CEO will become President and CEO on 1 December 2026, and Shantanu Narayen becomes Executive Chair. David Wadhwani's departure was announced the same day, and the shares fell.
• 31 Aug 2026 — Partnership with Saudi Arabia expanded. An agreement with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and HUMAIN gives up to 27m residents free access to Firefly and Express. Adobe values the access at more than $4bn.
• 25 Jun 2026 — Director bought $1.95m of stock. David Ricks bought 10,000 shares at $194.51, a week after the 52-week low.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 10 Nov 2026 — Adobe MAX 2026 opens at the Miami Beach Convention Center and runs to 12 November, with pre-conference sessions on 8 and 9 November.
• 27 Nov 2026 — FY2026 fiscal year end.
• 01 Dec 2026 — Anil Chakravarthy becomes President and CEO; Shantanu Narayen becomes Executive Chair.
• 09 Dec 2026 — Q4 and FY2026 earnings release and conference call, 2:00pm Pacific time. Management has guided Q4 revenue to $6.80bn to $6.85bn. FY2027 targets would normally be given at the same time.
• TBC — court entry of the stipulated order settling the US government's subscription-cancellation case, filed on 13 March 2026.
• TBD — 2027 annual meeting of stockholders. The 2026 meeting was held virtually on 15 April 2026.

Adobe pays no dividend, so there are no ex-dividend or payment dates to track. Macro releases that move large-cap software are listed on the ChartsView Economic Calendar. Reader discussion of these dates continues in the Forum.

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