Autodesk Q3 FY1/25 Earnings Review

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Not Your Grandparents’ Economic Indicator

by Alex King, CEO, Cestrian Capital Research, Inc

Autodesk is, as any fule kno, the #1 provider of design software across multiple industry sectors. If you are an Autodesk customer then to the extent you are growing, you buy more Autodesk seats; and to the extent you are cutting back, you buy less new Autodesk seats and you fight with your sales rep to cut your maintenance fees for the seats you have to keep. And if you are an Autodesk customer it means you build stuff or your provide services to other people who build stuff.

So for me even if for no-one else, I look at Autodesk as something of a bellwether for the economy at large. Recognized revenue growth rates are useful; the rate of growth in remaining performance obligations (“RPO” or, in oldspeak, Orders) too.

Here’s the headline numbers.

Now let’s take a deeper look.