Adobe shares dropped more than 6% in extended trading Wednesday after the software maker posted a lighter-than-expected forecast for 2024.
Here’s how the company did, compared to consensus estimates from LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:
Earnings per share: $4.27, adjusted vs. $4.14 expected
Revenue: $5.05 billion vs. $5.03 billion expected
Revenue grew almost 12% from a year ago in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 1, according to a statement. Net income increased 26% to $1.48 billion, or $3.23 per share, up from $1.18 billion, or $2.53 per share, in the year-ago quarter.
While results for the latest quarters topped estimates, Adobe’s guidance for the new fiscal year disappointed Wall Street.
Adobe called for fiscal 2024 earnings per share of $17.60 to $18 on $ $21.3 billion to $21.5 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected $18 in adjusted earnings per share and $21.73 billion in revenue.
Executives continue to look carefully at spending, Anil Chakravarthy, president of Adobe’s experience business that includes marketing software, said on a conference call with analysts.
Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen, acknowledged questions about forward-looking recurring revenue the company could derive from subscriptions to the Creative Cloud software bundle. During the quarter Adobe increased the costs of some subscriptions.
‘We’re extremely confident about how that continues to be a growth business, and perhaps the pricing impact was overestimated,” Narayen said.
Also in the quarter, Adobe’s Firefly generative artificial intelligence features became available in the Photoshop and Illustrator programs for Creative Cloud subscribers. An enterprise version of the Firefly web app that can create images based on a few words of human input also became available.
Adobe remains focused on closing the $20 billion Figma acquisition it announced in September 2022. The company said it disagrees with findings from regulators in the European Commission and the U.K. and that it’s responding to regulators. The U.S. Department of Justice has also been looking into the planned deal.
“While the DOJ does not have a formal timeline to decide whether to bring a complaint, we expect a decision soon,” Narayen said.
The guidance does not factor in impact from Figma.
Adobe said in a separate regulatory filing that it has been working with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on an inquiry over cancellation and subscription practices in connection with the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act. The FTC told the company in November that it had the authority to enter into consent negotiations to see if a settlement could be reached, according to the filing. Adobe sees its past behavior as lawful and said the matter might have a material effect on financial performance.
Prior to the after-hours move, Adobe shares were up almost 86% this year, outperforming the S&P 500 stock index, which has gained about 23%.
Shares of Electronic Arts closed up 15% on Friday following a report in the Wall Street Journal that the video game company is nearing a roughly $50 billion deal to go private.
Investors including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Silver Lake could announce the deal as soon as next week, the report said. PIF has been pouring billions of dollars into gaming, purchasing the makers of Pokemon Go and the parent company behind Monopoly Go, for example.
Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners is another participating investor, according to a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.
The deal would be the largest leveraged buyout in Wall Street history, surpassing the agreement to take TXU Energy private for about $45 billion in 2007. A leveraged buyout (LBO) is when debt is predominately used for an acquisition, a tactic traditionally used by private equity firms or activists.
EA makes popular video games including The Sims, Madden NFL, the soccer game FC, formerly known as FIFA. With Friday’s gains, the stock is up about 32% for the year.
EA did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Former Meta global affairs chief Nick Clegg said Friday that tech companies should keep a distance from politics and people should feel “uneasy” about those firms intervening in the public space.
“I generally don’t think that politics and tech innovation mixes very well,” Clegg told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I think it’s quite good when they kind of keep each other at a certain, respectful distance.”
President Donald Trump‘s deal with China this week to keep TikTok alive in the U.S. includes heavy doses of both elements, and the balance between the technology and political interests will be closely watched.
Clegg said two details should be especially looked at with TikTok: The safety of American data and the ownership of the algorithm, which he said would be “quite difficult” to share.
Clegg, who stepped down from his role at Meta earlier this year, questioned if U.S. data would be “kept safe here and not subject to surveillance,” but was also critical of other government efforts to silo data.
Clegg noted a recent legislative effort by India to impose “hard data localization” that would keep all data about citizens in India.
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“The moment countries start doing that, the dominoes will start to fall,” he said. “If everybody says, ‘No, we want our slice of the … data cake.’ Then, of course, the open data flows that drives the internet will start eroding.”
Trump’s executive order for the new TikTok structure establishes a joint-venture company to oversee TikTok’s U.S. data and algorithm, with Oracle controlling cloud services and running the app’s security operations, CNBC’s David Faber reported.
Neither China nor TikTok parent company ByteDance has commented on Trump’s Thursday executive order.
Clegg said the biggest risk to the internet is possibly the relationship between the U.S. and China, noting the potential of any fallout to push other countries into different policies.
He said the image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing next to Chinese President Xi Jinping during a recent visit was “striking.”
“If India starts emulating China and starts trying to sort of cut off India, much like China has done from the rest of the internet. … I think that would be terrible for the kind of global open principles that the internet was based on,” Clegg said.
A car equipped with Momenta technology on display at the IAA Mobility show in Munich, Germany in September 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Momenta, a Chinese driverless technology startup, is raising a fresh round of funding that could value the company at around $6 billion, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC.
The valuation could change as the funding progresses, one of the people, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss the details publicly, said.
Bloomberg first reported the deal with a valuation above $5 billion.
Momenta declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.
The Beijing-headquartered company develops software and algorithms that can be used by automakers to give their vehicles some automated driving features. These company claims that its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) allows a car to carry out some functions autonomously such as changing lanes.
This week Momenta and Mercedes-Benz struck a deal to bring the Chinese firm’s technology to the German auto giant’s all-new electric CLA in China. The technology will power Mercedes-Benz’s driver assistance system across highways, urban streets, and parking, the two companies said in a joint press release on Thursday.
Momenta’s technology will eventually be equipped on 40 models developed by Mercedes-Benz, a person familiar with the matter said.
BMW signed a similar deal in June to equip its Neue Klasse electric vehicles in China with Momenta technology.
The company is participating in a competitive market that includes players like Nvidia and Horizon Robotics in China. There are a number of other players in the autonomous driving software space including WeRide and Pony.ai.
Signing with global automakers is a big win for Momenta which is also gearing up for an initial public offering. Reuters reported on Friday that the company is considering shifting its listing to Hong Kong from New York.