Coinstar (Nasdaq: CSTR) is doing it all.
The company behind its namesake coin-counting machines and Redbox disc-renting kiosks had its cake and ate it, too, last night.
First came the blowout earnings report. Revenue soared $520.5 million, fueled almost entirely by a nearly 40% surge in its Redbox business. With Redbox now accounting for 86% of Coinstar's revenue, isn't it just a matter of time before the company takes on a new corporate moniker?
Earnings soared 47% to $1.00 a share. Analysts were clueless, targeting net income to actually decline to $0.64 a share on a mere $498.1 million in revenue.
Coinstar's second "aha moment" came when it revealed it was snapping up NCR's (NYSE: NCR) DVD kiosk business. The press release doesn't call out Blockbuster by name, but NCR had licensed the "Blockbuster Express" brand from DISH Network's (Nasdaq: DISH) Blockbuster for its Redbox-like automated machines that spit out disc rentals. Coinstar is paying $100 million for the kiosks, DVD inventory, and certain retailer contracts. In other words, Coinstar just wiped out its only material competitor on the DVD kiosk front.
Boom. Well-played, Coinstar.
These are certainly interesting times for Coinstar. Earlier yesterday it announced plans to team up with Verizon (NYSE: VZ) to introduce a streaming video service during the latter half of this year. Given Coinstar's DVD and Blu-ray kiosks and Verizon's streaming acumen, this would be the first challenge to Netflix's (Nasdaq: NFLX) dual model outside of Blockbuster's forever fluctuating initiatives.
Coinstar's outlook is also encouraging. The company sees a 2012 profit of $3.80 a share to $4.30 a share on $2.075 billion to $2.25 billion in revenue. Sure, this is decelerating growth. The midpoints imply earnings and revenue climbing just 12% and 17% higher, respectively. However, double-digit growth is nothing to sneeze at while cynics -- like me, I'll sheepishly admit -- are predicting an end to disc-based rentals.
Coinstar isn't going down without a fight, and judging by all of last night's news it doesn't plan on going down at all.
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