Adobe sees strong Q4 with $1.07B in revenue, 644K new paying Creative Cloud subscribers

Adobe now has 3.454 million paying Creative Cloud subscribers, the company revealed in its fourth quarter financial report today.

Adobe originally predicted it would reach 3.3 million paying subscribers by the end of 2014.

Adobe reported revenues of $1.073 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.36 for the fourth quarter. Analysts had expected $1.06 billion in revenues with earnings of $0.30 per share. Adobe predicted it would bring in between $1.025 billion and $1.075 billion in revenues with GAAP earnings of $0.05 to $0.11 and non-GAAP earnings of $0.26 to $0.32.

To put Adobe’s fourth quarter financials simply: The company surpassed expectations.

Is Adobe’s subscription business working?

Revenues aside, investors are likely to focus on the company’s subscription business more than anything else. And indeed, Adobe’s steady, predictable subscriber growth is already affecting the company in after-hours trading.

Adobe added 644,000 paying customers to its pool of Creative Cloud subscribers, up from the 2.81 million paying subscribers it reported last quarter. For the record, Adobe reported 2.308 million paying subscribers for Q2 2014 and 1.844 million for Q1 2014.

It’s now been well over a year since Adobe announced plans to kill off its classic Creative Suite bundle for a subscription service, but Creative Cloud isn’t entirely in the clear yet. The company’s suite of apps can last designers and photographers quite a few years. And so, the company’s subscription campaign carries on.