News

3Q First Data revenue up, profit down

October 17, 2005

DENVER - First Data Corp. reported revenue of $2.7 billion for the third quarter of 2005, a 6 percent increase from the same period last year. The company's overall profit, however, fell 8 percent, down from $460.6 million in '04 to $421.5 million, in part because of integration costs associated with the acquisition of Concord EFS and expenses related to the Encorus mobile payments business.

According to a news release, that growth was significantly impacted by the payment services segment, whose revenue grew 12 percent to $1.1 billion. Western Union money transfer, which represents 86 percent of payment services' revenue, experienced a 22 percent growth in consumer-to-consumer transactions and a 14 percent revenue increase in money transfer revenue.

Merchant services also reported an increase. Revenue from that segment totaled $1.1 billion, an 8 percent hike from 3Q 2004. And transaction growth was up 13 percent.

Revenue from the card issuing services segment, however, dropped 4 percent to $594 million.

"We are very encouraged by our results this quarter," said Charlie Fote, First Data chairman and chief executive officer. "Our results reflect the second half performance improvements in our payments and merchant businesses that we had anticipated. … At the same time, we continue to take steps to improve the performance of our card business."