Adobe posted record revenue — but the stock sank after its CFO announced a surprise exit

Marvell Technology, the semiconductor company, has hired Dan Durn away from Adobe — he is set to join as CFO on June 15, according to Barron's. Stepping into the interim CFO role is Steve Day, who currently holds the title of senior vice president of corporate finance at Adobe. Day brings 20 years of financial leadership experience at Adobe to the role, the company said.

Adobe also beat analyst earnings expectations for the quarter. On an adjusted basis, the company earned $5.96 per share, topping the $5.82 consensus forecast. On a GAAP basis, net income reached $1.71 billion, with diluted earnings of $4.25 per share; a year ago, the figures were $1.69 billion and $3.94 per share, respectively.

Adobe bumped its fiscal 2026 revenue guidance to $26.5 billion–$26.6 billion, a meaningful step up from the $25.9 billion–$26.1 billion range it had previously communicated. The adjusted EPS target was similarly revised upward, now sitting at $24.35–$24.45 versus the earlier $23.30–$23.50 band. Both figures clear the Wall Street consensus, which had called for adjusted earnings of $23.54 per share on $26.06 billion in revenue.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, management guided for revenue in the $6.67 billion to $6.72 billion range, with adjusted earnings expected between $6.05 and $6.10 per share.

At quarter's end, Adobe's annualized recurring revenue stood at $27.1 billion — a figure that bested analyst forecasts and encompasses roughly $480 million tied to Semrush Holdings, a brand visibility business the company brought under its umbrella in April. AI-first ARR exceeded $500 million and tripled year over year, the company said.

Despite the strong results, Adobe stock fell. The leadership transition compounds an already unsettled period for the company. Chair and CEO Shantanu Narayen's own exit is already on the calendar — he announced in March that he would leave after more than 18 years leading Adobe, contingent on the board finding a replacement. Together, the two pending departures put Adobe in the unusual position of running parallel executive searches.

On the analyst call, Narayen said Adobe plans to prioritize freemium AI offerings to grow its user base, a shift that executives acknowledged will pressure ARR in the second half of the year. Monthly active users of Acrobat and Express climbed to over 850 million, up from 700 million the prior year, and the creative freemium user base nearly doubled, reaching more than 90 million compared with 50 million previously.

Adobe has been working to position itself in the AI era through products including CX Enterprise, an agentic AI system for managing the customer lifecycle that the company announced in April. Shares have shed roughly 37% of their value since January, according to The Wall Street Journal.