Adobe unveils 'Creative Cloud' in India with monthly fees

Aiming to leverage cloud and mobility trends to expand revenues, IT firm Adobe Systems today launched the 'Creative Cloud' in India that offers a membership-based service with access to products and services.

Creative Cloud provides users with unlimited access to download and install all creative suite desktop applications, photoshop lightroom, Adobe muse, Adobe edge and services, game developer tools and integration with touch applications.

The Nasdaq-listed company launched the product targeting teams and small and medium businesses (SMB) with a promotional pricing of Rs 2,885 per month. Once the promotional offer ends on April 30 this year, it will be priced at Rs 4,040 per user per month.

However, the service for teams and business in India is priced on the higher side at Rs 4,040 per month. It is priced at $69.99 per user per month (about Rs 3,800 per month) in the US, Australia and South East Asia.

"Creative Cloud is a path-breaking service and globally its paid user base stood at 3.26 lakh by December last year. That apart, since it was launched in May 2012, the total users crossed 1 million including free subscription users," Adobe Managing Director (South Asia) Umang Bedi told reporters.

It was first launched in the US, Australia and South Asia, he added.

On the pricing, Bedi said local taxes, regulations, foreign exchange conversion percentages among others adds to the cost of the product.

In December last year, while presenting the Q4 and fiscal 2012 results, Adobe said Creative Cloud paid subscriptions grew to 326,000 as of the end of the year, with existing annualised recurring revenue of $153 million for the creative business.

For Q4 FY 2012, Adobe revenues stood at $1.15 billion and for the full fiscal it was $4.4 billion. The company follows December-November as the fiscal year.

Adobe added about 10,000 Creative Cloud subscriptions per week during the quarter against 8,000 subscriptions per week in the third quarter.

Through Creative Cloud, Adobe is moving away from selling-software-in-a-box to a complete subscription model.