Good news for Adobe: the company’s Q4 results show it surpassed a massive $11 billion in revenue for 2019. It’s the first time ever that Adobe has surpassed such a figure and shows an impressive 24% growth from the previous year.
A fundamental part of such profit is the transition to a subscription model that the company rolled out. Usage of the Adobe Creative Suite, now known as Creative Cloud, changed to a monthly fee, and is a big reason the company’s turnover continues to grow. For comparison, their 2016 number was $5.85 billion, meaning it has almost doubled in just three years.
Adobe was just short of hitting revenue of $3 billion in the three-month period of Q4 this year. Adobe president and CEO Shantanu Narayen said in a press release:
Adobe’s phenomenal performance in Q4 capped a record fiscal 2019 with revenue exceeding $11 billion. Adobe’s vision, category leadership, continuous product innovation, and large and loyal customer base position us well for 2020 and beyond.
Executive Vice President and CFO John Murphy added:
[Adobe is] bullish about our opportunities and our ability to continue to deliver strong top- and bottom-line growth.
Looks like they won’t be reverting from their subscription model any time soon.
Lead image by Mikaela Shannon on Unsplash.
From a consumers perspective yea Adobe is ripping us off as is, Autodesk and their idiotic token system, as is Comcast, as are all the cellular companies. But there are always options. I dumped Adobe long ago and went with Affinity Photo and Exposure. My ISP changes every two years when my contract runs out and my cell phone is pretty basic. There are always choices.
Don't like Adobe? Change. Pretty simple. I like LR and PS and during the time I've been subscribing, there was one upgrade that was bad. Other than that, I've had no problem with it.
I read here that some are 'locked in' to Adobe. Why is that?
Everyone happy with them has just Photoshop and Lightroom for $9. Nobody is going to complain about ten bucks but add one more program and you're paying $52 a month. Then you might care if every new update is bug ridden and a waste of money. Maybe they can contact my support line when my card info gets buggy.
And that's me. I use LR/PS and that's it. I'm happy because it does just what I need. I can't speak for others.
I think "locked in" and "extortion" is in the conversation because if you cancel your subscription, you can't go back to your edits. If you change software, you would have to start from scratch. May not be such a big deal for those that do simple edits. But, for those that do more complex edits, it's going to suck. If you want access to those edits, you'll have to keep paying. So, for some (or many), they can't just simply change.
Whereas with purchased software, if you plan on switching to something else, while you're going through the transition, you at least still have access your edits forever and for free.
Because e.g. retouchers also work with Adobe. If I look for people who don't, I eliminate at least 80% of the market.
Wow! What a lot of whingers! Just go elsewhere if you don't like you product, vote with your feet or whatever! So anyway, pre-subscription PS cost an absolute fortune for a one off payment, now you get PS/LR and bridge etc for Au$15 a month. It's also tax deductable if you're doing this for a living and pre digital days we were spending 10's of thousands on film and processing per year. Stop complaining and go download the Gimp if you want something for free. Very little out there can compete with PS if you have used it for years and have actions, pre-sets etc built up into your workflow. It just works. Why would I bother trying to learn a whole new program when PS is already the most professional product out there?
Like someone said, no one is forcing you to use PS or C1 or "Aperutre", "iffinity", "Alexia", "Mystic500", "instantProphoto2000" or whatever...
I can guarantee that the whingers all swap camera systems at a drop of hat when a manufacturer comes out with an extra pixel or another extra frame rate.
$15 a month is a pittance compared to other photography equipment. A new lens say at $500? that is over three YEARS worth of PS! Fancy new leather strap with a symbol of peace on it? $100? Please.
Merry Xmas, I hope you ALL get a Adobe subscription that you secretly want;)
Your Pre-subscription point is missing two valid points. One, they weren't making money before because they weren't innovating and nobody ever wanted to upgrade. Two, yes they were expensive but once you had them you were good for as long as you wanted.
CS6 worked for me, I still have the Masters edition. I upgraded when I moved to 2k monitors and the UI was too small to work in because they didn't want to add that fix but force everyone to the hostage situation it is now.
And the "Just go somewhere else" argument is idiotic. Do these other programs open up PSD files? And again, $15? Try $52 a month for buggy software labeled "pro." Price is not the problem. Lack of support for their software, lack of innovation, lack of testing before throwing update traps at us is the problem. If you think they are innovative then explain to me why the best tools for their software is usually 3rd party company plugins.
I'm going to have to step it up a bit next year, they're catching me up.
ELEVEN. BILLION. DOLLARS. Holy crap!
I guess all that money they did not bother to spend on properly developing Photoshop for iPad last year went straight to their bottom line.
it's not that impressive when you factor in they STILL pretty much a have a monopoly on the market for this type of software. it's been an industry standard for decades. Adobe know$ thi$ $o they made a $ubscription model to eek out as much money as possible while putting as little effort as possible to actually improve their product. In terms of business it's great move but it's very bad for the consumer. Adobe can just jack around if they want to and still rake int he cash until a true blue competitor comes along.
They made the subscription model because nobody was upgrading to each lackluster new version before subs and they were going broke.
Ahhh so they were jacking around even before the sub model! I can see it though. CS5 from CS4 wasn't all that fantastic from my use. It seemed like more of the same. No real useful additions or fixes from CS4 to CS5. It might also be that I didn't need what they added in CS5 and just never used it. CS6 seemed decent but again not that big of leap from CS5 to CS6. Seems like they have gotten lazy or are just riding their success.
So now you've bought all the toys you can use boats, cars, plane, island now man up and have you employees bring PS and LR up to date. you cant take it with you but you can leave something behind for people to remember you. think about it
Well, so much for those who are leaving. When you sell a product that the market wants, I guess you get to offer it the way you want as long as the public buys it....It's called the market. When a real disrupter comes out with something that really works, they will take market share from Adobe.
I never liked the subscription model. I remember the days of the retail boxes which you get to own something and not constantly pay like a utility bill. I still use PS but the Elements version. If they put that on subscription that too will go away sad to say. Looking at the numbers. Unfortunately, its here to stay and they making a killing. Case and point. There are no materials to manufacture or get returned. Its all digital so it saves the company a lot. If one made a living at photography perhaps a subscription would be fitting but as a casual amateur user it just doesn't add up.
Costs less a month than my phone.
Costs less a month than my Cable connection.
Cost less a month than many will spend on cigs or booze.
It's a tool, Here it's used every day, a lot of the suite. It gets continuously updated.
I don't like Adobe any more than the next person and gripe about it too but it works, does the job and enables me to earn the month to live.
When we had boxed versions I ended up having to buy 2 sets because I was running Mac and PC, the 2-install rule didn't apply for cross platform. It does now.
well stated. There are actually some good things about the subscription model that balances the negative.