Strong processing volume among small and midsize merchants and growth in noncard operations contributed to an 13.7% increase in Heartland Payment Systems Inc. first-quarter total revenue, to $467.7 million from $411.2 million during the same period last year. Net income was down 44.4%, to $7.9 million from $14.2 million.
“Results for the first quarter reflect the success of our strategic initiatives to both improve the productivity of our sales organization and achieve processing efficiencies,” Robert Carr, chairman and CEO of the Princeton, N.J.-based card processor, said in a news release accompanying the earnings report.
At $112.7 million, net revenue for the quarter was up 8.5%, the strongest gain in six quarters, with all of the company’s card and noncard businesses registering gains during the quarter, Carr said in the release.
Small and midsize merchant transaction processing volume totaled $15.4 billion, up 7.1% from a year earlier.
Heartland processed 747 million transactions for network-services merchants, up 9%, contributing to a 2.7% year-over-year increase in network services net revenue for the quarter.
The company reported an operating margin on net revenue of 12.9%, reflecting a 7.8% decrease in processing and servicing costs compared with the first quarter of last year. Same store sales rose 3.2%, Heartland said.
