News

Euronet's earnings decline, revenue rises in 1Q '04

April 28, 2004

LEAWOOD, Kan. - Even though Euronet Worldwide's (Nasdaq: EEFT) first-quarter earnings for 2004 declined by 79 percent from a year ago, the company still sees improvement from 2003.

Revenue for the latest quarter totaled $81.1 million, up 145 percent from $33.1 million in 2003's first quarter.

In 2003, first-quarter earnings included an $18 million gain on the sale of the company's UK ATM network and a $1.8 million loss for foreign exchange translation Including those items, the company reported earnings at $15.4 million, or 57 cents a share. Excluding these one-time items, the company posted a loss of $700,000, or 3 cents a share.

For the most recent quarter, Euronet posted earnings of $3.3 million, or 10 cents a share. Excluding a one-time foreign exchange gain of $200,000 and a loss of $100,000 for the early retirement of debt, earnings totaled $3.1 million, or 9 cents a share.

The EFT Processing Segment posted 2004 first quarter revenues of $14.9 million, compared to $11.9 million reported for 2003's first quarter 2003. Operating income was $2 million, compared to the prior year's same quarter of $800,000.

The EFT Processing Segment processed 34.9 million transactions in 2004's first quarter compared to 23.4 million transactions for the same period last year. The segment completed the quarter with 3,870 ATMs owned or operated, compared to 2,994 ATMs at the end of 2003's first quarter 2003. Euronet owns and/or operates ATMs in Hungary, Poland, Germany, Croatia, the Czech Republic, UK, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Kosovo, India and Egypt.

The company says the improved results are largely attributable to the continued growth in ATMs under management together with transactional growth from those ATMs.

The Prepaid Processing Segment, which processes electronic point-of-sale prepaid transactions at more than 150,000 POS terminals in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the U.S., reported first quarter 2004 revenues of $62.9 million, compared to $17.4 million reported for the first quarter 2003. Operating income for the first quarter was $6.4 million, compared to the prior year's quarter of $1.5 million.

The Software Solutions Segment reported $3.2 million in revenues in 2004's first quarter, compared to $3.9 million in revenues for first quarter 2003. Operating income was $200,000 for both quarters.