Adobe reports Thursday night against a revenue target that already builds in the Semrush deal

by Leah Avraham · September 10, 2026

Previews Correspondent, Earnings Dispatch

Adobe has not yet reported. The company said on Aug. 31 that it would release its third quarter fiscal year 2026 results "after the market closes on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, followed by a conference call with investors from 2-3 p.m. Pacific Time" — that is, after the U.S. market close this afternoon. As of late Thursday morning in New York, with the session still open, the numbers were not out and nothing in this article reflects them.

What is on the table is the guide Adobe set three months ago. In its second-quarter release on June 11, the company published a table headed "Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Financial Targets" listing total revenue of "$6.67 billion to $6.72 billion," Business Professionals & Consumers subscription revenue of "$1.87 billion to $1.89 billion," Creative & Marketing Professionals subscription revenue of "$4.61 billion to $4.64 billion," earnings per share on a GAAP basis of "$4.40 to $4.45," and earnings per share on a non-GAAP basis of "$6.05 to $6.10."

The sentence attached to those targets is the one that matters most for anyone comparing tonight's print against last year. Adobe wrote: "These targets factor in the acquisition of Semrush Holdings, Inc. and assume current macroeconomic conditions." The guide is therefore not a purely organic number. A revenue result inside the range does not by itself establish how much of the quarter came from Adobe's existing subscription base, and a result outside it does not by itself isolate demand from deal accounting. The release does not break the Semrush contribution out of the target, so that split is not derivable from the document.

The GAAP and non-GAAP lines are also worth holding apart, because Adobe's wedge between them is wide and consistent. At the midpoints of the third-quarter targets, the non-GAAP figure sits about $1.65 a share above the GAAP figure. In the second quarter Adobe actually reported GAAP diluted earnings of $4.25 a share and non-GAAP diluted earnings of $5.96, a gap of $1.71. Headline coverage tonight that quotes a single EPS number without saying which basis it is stated on will be quoting the larger of two very different figures.

For scale on the revenue target, Adobe's quarterly report for the third quarter of fiscal 2025, the period ended Aug. 29, 2025, put total revenue for that quarter at $5.988 billion and GAAP diluted earnings per share at $4.18. Set against that base, the $6.67 billion to $6.72 billion target range implies year-over-year growth of roughly 11 to 12 percent, and the $4.40 to $4.45 GAAP earnings range implies a smaller advance on the bottom line than on the top. Those are arithmetic comparisons of two disclosed figures, not company statements.

Adobe reports its subscription revenue by customer group rather than by the older Digital Media and Digital Experience segment labels, and the two group lines in the third-quarter target table — Business Professionals & Consumers, and Creative & Marketing Professionals — are the ones to reconcile against tonight's release. The June release did not publish a separate net new annualized recurring revenue target for the third quarter.

The full-year picture Adobe set in June was a table headed "Fiscal Year 2026 Financial Targets": total revenue of "$26.50 billion to $26.60 billion," Business Professionals & Consumers subscription revenue of "$7.44 billion to $7.48 billion," Creative & Marketing Professionals subscription revenue of "$18.21 billion to $18.27 billion," total Adobe ending ARR growth of "10.2% year over year," GAAP earnings per share of "$17.90 to $18.00," and non-GAAP earnings per share of "$24.35 to $24.45."

The ARR line is easy to misquote. The label Adobe uses is "Total Adobe ending ARR growth," a growth rate on ending annualized recurring revenue, not a dollar figure for net new ARR and not a bookings measure. The same Semrush-and-macro qualifying sentence governs the full-year table as governs the quarterly one.

Adobe's chair and chief executive, Shantanu Narayen, framed the June guide this way: "Adobe delivered record revenue of $6.62 billion in Q2 reflecting strong AI-driven demand across our customer groups and we are raising our full-year fiscal 2026 revenue and non-GAAP EPS targets on the strength of that performance." Note which target he said was raised on the earnings line: the non-GAAP one.

The backlog disclosure is the other line that will get compared tonight. Adobe wrote in June: "Exiting the quarter, Remaining Performance Obligations (“RPO”) were $22.27 billion, and Current Remaining Performance Obligations (“cRPO”) were 67%." Adobe's condensed consolidated statement of income in that release is printed under the notation "(In millions, except per share data; unaudited)," and its balance sheet and cash flow statement under "(In millions; unaudited)." The non-GAAP results table alongside them carries no unaudited marker of its own. Tonight's statements will likewise be unaudited until the corresponding quarterly report is filed.

Adobe is not the only large software company on the tape after the close. Oracle said in a release dated Sept. 2 that "its first quarter fiscal year 2027 results will be released on Thursday, September 10th, after the close of the market," with a conference call and live webcast at 4:00 p.m. Central Time. Both companies therefore report this evening; neither had reported as this article was written.

For context on the tape going in: the S&P 500 closed Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 7,636.36, down 0.48%; the Nasdaq Composite at 26,253.34, down 0.64%; the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 52,380.66, down 0.77%; and the Russell 2000 at 2,919.86, down 1.36%. Thursday's session was still in progress at the time of writing, and no closing level for today exists yet.

The documents available before the print settle what Adobe told investors to expect and on what basis. They do not settle the three things tonight's release will: the split between organic growth and the Semrush contribution, whether the full-year targets move again, and whether the GAAP and non-GAAP lines converge or widen. Anything asserted about those before tonight's release — which lands after the 1 p.m. Pacific close, ahead of the 2 p.m. Pacific call — is an estimate, not a disclosure.