Adobe: Buy, Customers And Shareholders Are Of Value Here
Contributor since 2021 / 2739 Followers
Summary:
- ADBE ended 2022 strongly with a robust balance sheet, something I believe will support its initiative to return capital to shareholders.
- I expect the company’s long-term growth to benefit from the Global Creative Software Market’s 6.3% CAGR growth to $13 billion by 2028.
- The company’s product innovation will attract new customers and strengthen the loyalty of existing ones.
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Investment Thesis
Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) is a software company that sells a wide range of products worldwide. Shares of the company have dropped by around 33% over the past year, a trend I put down to the challenging macroeconomic environment. Despite the decline in stock price, the company nonetheless managed to end the year strongly with a robust balance sheet.
Through 2028, the size of the global creative software market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.3%. With this strong growth, I’m pleased with how the company is doing in this growing industry. For example, upgrading its products has been a key strategic move in the tech industry. The changes go a long way toward making things easier for customers, which is vital to getting and keeping customers.
I am optimistic about the company’s long-term prospects because I believe that the strong end of 2022 and the expanding market will act as potent tailwinds for the company’s development.
A Look at the Market
There is an increasing demand for technologically advanced methods of producing audio and video content. Businesses and solution providers are under constant pressure to turn a profit in this age of continuously expanding content. As a marketing strategy, video has shown to be highly effective in capturing and holding the attention of target audiences. The market for artistic programs has benefited from this trend.
Most of the big players in the market are actively working to strengthen their standing. For instance, Adobe Systems Inc., a market leader in digital media products and services, is marketing Adobe Premiere Element, a piece of software proving to be a convenient all-in-one video solution for editors. Many online businesses, YouTubers, and social media influencers use audio and video editing to add creativity to their online video products.
Solution suppliers and integrators are promoting their creative software solutions to small enterprises to diversify revenue. The global start-up culture creates new prospects for audio and video editing software manufacturers. Due to the digital marketing invasion, small businesses are embracing appealing online video content to sell and market their products.
The key market driver for audio editing software is the growing demand for high-quality audio products across businesses in the media and entertainment industry. Similarly, the entertainment industry’s rising emphasis on noise reduction and high-quality audio content drives demand for audio editing software. The market for audio editing software is expanding as it is used in more and more contexts, such as recording, playback, audio optimization, production, and audio. And because of Spotify’s meteoric rise, even unheard-of bands can now get their music out to millions of people at the press of a button. The size of the global creative software market is expected to reach $13 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.3% during the forecast period.
Adobe Enhancing Its Product
Upgrades in quality are crucial for businesses to maintain their competitive edge in the information technology market. The plans ADBE laid out for improving its services last year are still on track. Like most updates, Adobe’s latest one isn’t just about security and support. To prepare for the future, Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 was developed on the most recent version of PHP (8.1), making it robust, ready for any eventuality, and packed with features.
What about the upgrades?
The additional enhancements to its products will be crucial to the company’s long-term success since it will bring in new and returning customers. In light of this claim, the features and improvements of the updated product are outlined below.
Economically viable: Independent modular services, rather than modifications to the core code, are used to supply new functionality, giving merchants the benefit of faster feature adoption. Brands will have greater tools to manage the total cost of ownership and will upgrade less frequently. Adobe is essentially assisting businesses in preparing for the future by equipping them with the means to maintain a high degree of adaptability and to make the necessary changes quickly, conveniently, and at a lower cost.
Efficiency: Compared to previous releases, this one is the quickest and most scalable. Compared to the past, today’s retailers can manage ten times more complicated catalogs, provide five times faster API response times, and process ten times more transactions per hour. For expanding organizations, speed and quicker delivery translate to more revenue and greater customer pleasure.
Headless capabilities: Adobe has expanded its headless offering by adding new features to PWA Studio 12.3 and extending GraphQL API coverage for some B2B and admin functionalities. Headless infrastructures give marketers greater flexibility than ever. Adobe now supports dynamic blocks and targeted promotions, allowing merchandisers and marketers to create better cart promotions and personalized content for specific consumer segments, reducing go-live time.
Improved accessibility: An improved interface for the visually impaired has been implemented in the admin. Allows users with visual impairments to access the backend with the help of assistive technologies like screen readers. The modernized icons, buttons, and tooltips provide a better experience for both users and programmers.
In addition to the aforementioned improvements, various additions have been made to enhance the user experience. To provide real-time monitoring, reporting, insights, and suggestions, Adobe Commerce is making its site-wide Analysis Tool available to all its clients. Payment services, B2B purchase approvals, and inventory management are other business-boosting innovations.
Robust Balance Sheet
ADBE had a spectacular fiscal year ending in 2022 financially. The company’s financial statements are particularly interesting to me, precisely its balance sheet. With a debt of $4.63B, or 0.02X its market cap of $160.10B, the firm’s balance sheet is significantly deleveraged. Based on this debt-to-equity ratio, I believe the company is well-protected against the risks associated with debt, even in the current environment of sky-high interest rates. Its liquidity is remarkable. The 6.13B in cash at the corporation is ample enough to pay off its debt without depleting it.
I believe the current cash balance will be more than adequate to return capital to shareholders through share buybacks, which the company has been doing quarterly. I expect the corporation to continue repurchasing shares with its existing cash reserves.
” In Q4 we entered into a $1.75 billion share repurchase agreement, and we currently have $6.55 billion remaining of our $15 billion authorization granted in December 2020 which goes through 2024.” – Dan Durn
This repurchase of shares demonstrates management’s dedication to the company’s stockholders, which, in turn, should boost the price of the company’s stock.
Conclusion
The expanding market and the company’s customer-focused innovation will greatly contribute to ADBE’s future success. Innovations in its offerings, in my opinion, will do much to win over new consumers while satisfying existing ones. The long-term expansion will benefit significantly from this.
The company is dedicated to its shareholders, as seen by its practice of returning a sizeable portion of its cashflows to them through share buybacks. A healthy balance sheet is one of the company’s strongest assets and will help it succeed in this endeavor. These factors lead me to recommend buying shares in this company.
Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Additional disclosure: The information presented here is not intended to be taken as investment advice or as a recommendation regarding whether or not to purchase shares of the aforementioned company. Rather, it is an expression of my own analysis of the company’s progress.