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Online payments paid off for CyberSource Corp. in 2008 as the payment-gateway and risk-management company posted net income of $10.7 million for the year, a 345.8% increase from $2.4 million in 2007. Revenue increased 95.7%, to $229 million from $117 million. Mountain View, Calif.-based CyberSource had fourth-quarter net income of $10 million, up 733.3% from $1.2 million during the same period in 2007. Revenue for the quarter, which ended Dec. 31, grew 37.2%, to $62.3 million from $45.4 million. CyberSource executives attribute the growth to merchants increasingly using the Internet as a sales outlet and to consumers turning to Internet retailers to find bargains. "On the merchant side, many published reports indicate that we are still in the very early days of merchant adoption of the Internet as a meaningful sales channel," William S. McKiernan, CyberSource chairman and CEO, told analysts during a conference call yesterday. Anecdotal evidence points to online-merchant startups coming from individuals looking to replace or supplement lost income or by merchants migrating from a physical store, McKiernan said. "I do not believe these shifts to online channels will abate in the foreseeable future," he said. CyberSource says it added 27,700 customers during the fourth quarter, bringing the total at the end of 2008 to 253,000. The company says its European business represents approximately 23% of its total transaction value, which totaled $109 billion in 2008. CyberSource says its U.S. businesses represents about 25% of the total transaction value.
