Reviewing Adobe (ADBE) & Its Peers

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) is one of 954 publicly-traded companies in the “Software” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Adobe to related businesses based on the strength of its earnings, risk, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

81.8% of Adobe shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 42.0% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Adobe shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 19.8% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Adobe and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Adobe	7	20	9	0	2.06
Adobe Competitors	5717	21424	44693	1492	2.57

Adobe presently has a consensus target price of $283.90, suggesting a potential upside of 12.90%. As a group, “Software” companies have a potential upside of 28.03%. Given Adobe’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Adobe has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Volatility and Risk

Adobe has a beta of 1.42, indicating that its share price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Adobe’s peers have a beta of 1.26, indicating that their average share price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Adobe and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Adobe	28.05%	65.65%	25.54%
Adobe Competitors	-620.53%	20.98%	-8.95%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Adobe and its peers revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Adobe	$23.77 billion	$7.13 billion	14.03
Adobe Competitors	$1.84 billion	$385.92 million	110.50

Adobe has higher revenue and earnings than its peers. Adobe is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Adobe beats its peers on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

About Adobe

Adobe Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified software company worldwide. It operates through three segments: Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing and Advertising. The Digital Media segment offers products, services, and solutions that enable individuals, teams, and enterprises to create, publish, and promote content; and Document Cloud, a unified cloud-based document services platform. Its flagship product is Creative Cloud, a subscription service that allows members to access its creative products. This segment serves content creators, students, workers, marketers, educators, enthusiasts, and communicators. The Digital Experience segment provides an integrated platform and set of applications and services that enable brands and businesses to create, manage, execute, measure, monetize, and optimize customer experiences from analytics to commerce. This segment serves marketers, advertisers, agencies, publishers, merchandisers, merchants, web analysts, data scientists, developers, and executives across the C-suite. The Publishing and Advertising segment offers products and services, such as e-learning solutions, technical document publishing, web conferencing, document and forms platform, web application development, and high-end printing, as well as Advertising Cloud offerings. It also provides consulting, technical support, and learning services. The company offers its products and services directly to enterprise customers through its sales force and local field offices, as well as to end users through app stores and through its website at adobe.com. It also distributes products and services through distributors, value-added resellers, systems integrators, software vendors and developers, retailers, and original equipment manufacturers. The company was formerly known as Adobe Systems Incorporated and changed its name to Adobe Inc. in October 2018. Adobe Inc. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.