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Payment-terminal maker VeriFone Holdings Inc. says it reduced its third-quarter net loss from the same period last year to $7.2 million from $42.4 million, sparked, in part, by an 11.7%, $27 million gain in revenue, to $258.7 million from $231.7 million. VeriFone attributed the improvement to increased sales in most regions and to cost-reduction efforts. During a conference call with analysts yesterday, CEO Douglas G. Bergeron said approximately 44% of the third-quarter revenue came from emerging markets, such as most of Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe, where financial institutions have been large buyers of the San Jose, Calif.-based company's products. In those regions the company sold mostly entry-level devices or wireless-payment systems, Bergeron said, which means the company can attempt to sell high-end products there later. "Beginning this year, our strategy has been to leverage technical expertise and support infrastructure into sales of higher value-added [products] and services to banks and to industries beyond banking," Bergeron told analysts. "We believe this strategy represents great upside for international growth." In North America and Western Europe, VeriFone is concentrating on selling more expensive products and services with higher profit margins, instead of low-end devices with lower margins. Though North America is the largest region for VeriFone, revenue there decreased 6.3% during the quarter, to $97.5 million from $104 million during the same period a last year. Latin America had the highest growth rate, rising 41.5%, to $60.4 million from $42.7 million. Revenue from Asia-Pacific sales grew by 26%, to $19.9 million from $15.8 million. VeriFone revenue increased 15.7% in Europe, to $80.9 million from $69.9 million.
