Despite a 63% hike in third quarter net profits, Adobe Systems Inc’s chairman and chief executive John Warnock was not best pleased with the Mountain View, California-based company’s performance. The main culprit was the application products division, specifically in Europe. The main reason for the lower numbers was a sharp decline in our European business and Adobe PageMaker 6.0 for the Macintosh platform shipped later in the quarter than we had expected, Warnock said. Dave Pratt, head of the division said the performance was seasonal, adding that the company shipped its PageMaker 6.0 upgrade on only a couple of days in August. Applications products revenue, which includes Adobe’s Acrobat and PrePress publishing software, rose by 4% to $111.6m while licensing revenue jumped 15% to $45.1m. The results were an anomaly, Adobe president Charles Geschke told Reuters. Analysts had been revising predictions downwards in recent weeks in response to the Pagemaker delays, but the figures were still below many predictions. Pratt said all indications point to a return to normal activity levels this quarter. Total turnover in the quarter were up 7% at $156.7m. Japan continued to be the company’s fastest-growing market. In after-hours trading on Monday Adobe shares dipped $1.75 to $49, having earlier jumped $1.88 to $50.75.
Content from our partners
