How would you like to try to make your fortune $0.71 at a time? Sounds like pretty slow going, doesn't it? But what if you could ring that register more than 700 million times a year? Ahhh, now we're starting to make some real money.
That's basically the gig over at Euronet Worldwide (NASDAQ:EEFT), a financial-services provider that helps manage ATM networks and provides processing services for prepaid mobile-phone operators.
While growth has slowed a little from the torrid pace of last year, the company is still performing very well and has a world of opportunity in front of it. Revenue rose about 28% this quarter. Quite conveniently, operating income and adjusted EBITDA also happened to grow by 28% relative to the year-ago quarter.
The company's prepaid processing business is still the largest contributor in terms of revenue and operating income. Revenue here was up 30%, and operating income grew 18%, with the company seeing the number of transactions it processed grow by nearly 52%. In the ATM business, revenue climbed 24%, and operating income was up a like amount, on top of a 40% increase in ATM transactions.
It should be noted that the example I used in the first paragraph was just to make a point (namely, the power of servicing a huge market) -- Euronet does not necessarily get paid on a per-transaction basis quite like that. Be that as it may, the company has become a very credible player in its markets, and large companies such as Sunoco (NYSE:SUN), Citigroup (NYSE:C), and ABN Amro (NYSE:ABN) have formed partnerships with it.
There's certainly a lot of debt here, and the valuation isn't exactly paltry. Still, the company is just getting its foot in the door in China and India, and those look to be huge market opportunities. Consider this -- if the data I dug up is accurate, there's roughly one ATM for every 800 Americans, but that ratio moves to 1:18,400 in China and 1:62,400 in India. Should Euronet reproduce even part of its success in Europe, where it's the largest processor, there could be millions more profitable transactions in the company's future.
For more Foolish thoughts on financial services:
Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).
