US software company Adobe said it is pulling its China-tailored software bundle from the mainland market following a business review, but vowed to maintain a long-term commitment to local customers.
After December 3, Adobe’s mainland website will no longer offer the Creative Cloud China Photography Plan, which is currently sold through a partnership with e-commerce service provider Baozun, the San Jose, California-based company said in an emailed statement. sent statement to the Post on Monday.
The decision was made based on an assessment of its operations, Adobe said, without elaborating.
For now, customers can subscribe to the 888 yuan (US$125) annual subscription for up to five years, including photo editing apps Photoshop, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop Express, through Adobe’s official online store on Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall platform.
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That store is also run by Baozun, a company that helps global brands from Intel to Microsoft manage their e-commerce presence in China.
On June 1, Adobe’s Tmall store will also stop accepting new subscriptions to the plan, which costs about half the price of a comparable product in the US.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Adobe said it remains committed to serving Chinese customers through other plans offered under Creative Cloud, the collection of graphic design, video editing, web development and photography software offered on the Internet.
Individual apps, including the flagship Photoshop, are still available to users in China through Adobe’s business-focused plans, such as Teams and Enterprise, through authorized resellers at varying prices.
The Teams plan, for example, includes 15 Adobe apps for an annual fee of 7,599 yuan, according to a representative at a reseller, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Launched in August 2019, Adobe’s China Photography Plan was initially marketed as an affordable option for both professional and amateur photographers, and touted as the software giant’s first app solution for individual users in the country.