Adobe Shares Fall After Hours on Disappointing 4Q Outlook

Shares of Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) fell nearly 7% in extended trading Wednesday after the company revealed a fourth-quarter outlook that fell sharply below Wall Street’s consensus.

The San Jose, Calif.-based software maker anticipates earnings next quarter of 53 cents to 58 cents, below average analyst estimates of 67 cents, according to a Thomson Reuters poll.

The company sees sales during the current period of $1.075 billion to $1.125 billion, bracketing the   Street’s view of $1.206 billion.

Adobe posted non-GAAP earnings for the third quarter of 58 cents, matching the consensus, while sales edged slightly higher to $1.08 billion from $1.01 billion in the same 2011 period, but missed the Street’s view of $1.1 billion.

The tech company blamed some of the revenue impact on negative foreign exchange rates and said that excluding the currency impact, sales would have landed in the high-end of its targeted range.

“Customers globally are adopting our new Creative Cloud subscription offering more quickly than we projected," Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in a statement.

Adobe said Creative Cloud paid subscriptions grew by about 200,000 during the third quarter, averaging about 8,000 new customers per week, while its Digital Marketing Suite achieved record quarterly revenue with 40% year-over-year growth.