NORTH CANTON, Ohio -- Diebold, Incorporated (NYSE: DBD) reported first quarter 2003 net income of $25.9 million or 36 cents a share, on revenues of $410 million, which was within the company's guidance of 34 cents to 39 cents a share.
This compares to a loss of $6.6 million or 9 cents a share in 2002's first quarter.
The increase in earnings was largely due to Diebold's security business, which grew nearly 23 percent. Security revenues were $107 million in 2003's first quarter, up from $87 million in 2002's first quarter.
Financial self-service revenue, which includes ATMs and related services, decreased 1.1 percent. Revenues were $296 million in 2003's first quarter, down from $299.4 million in 2002's first quarter.
The strongest region was Asia-Pacific, where Diebold saw a 32 percent jump in financial self-service earnings, from $23.7 million in 2002's first quarter to $31.4 million in 2003's first quarter.
Financial self-service revenues in EMEA (Europe/Middle East/Africa) grew 3 percent, from $54.7 million in 2002's first quarter to $56.5 million in 2003's first quarter. In the Americas, revenues dropped 6 percent, from $221 million in 2002's first quarter to $208 million in 2003's first quarter.
"We see global demand for new self-service products strengthening during the second half of the year as we roll out our new Opteva self-service hardware platform, which was unveiled on March 11 of this year," said Walden W. O'Dell, Diebold's chairman, president and chief executive, in a news release.
According to the release, Diebold received an $8 million order for the new Opteva from an unidentified large bank in the United States.
Other significant orders included orders for 700 ATMs from two banks in India; orders valued at more than $8 million from three financial institutions in Brazil; and an order for nearly $5 million from a large bank in China.
Voting Solutions revenues dropped 51 percent, from $14.4 million in 2002's first quarter to $7 million in 2003's first quarter. According to O'Dell, this was largely due to timing of product shipments. "We still expect to achieve our 2003 voting growth target," said O'Dell in the release.
A replay of an April 22 conference call with O'Dell and Gregory Geswein, Diebold's senior vice president and chief financial officer, is available on the company's Web site.
