Visa Inc. announced financial results for the first quarter 2015. Net income for the quarter was $1.6 billion, an increase of 11% over the prior year, or $2.53 per share, an increase of 15% over the prior year.
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All references to earnings per share assume fully-diluted class A share count unless otherwise noted.
Net operating revenue in the fiscal first quarter of 2015 was $3.4 billion, an increase of 7% nominally or 9% on a constant dollar basis over the prior year, driven by solid growth in service revenues, data processing revenues and international transaction revenues.
The strengthening of the U.S. dollar impacted net operating revenues by approximately 2 percentage points of negative growth during the quarter.
Payments volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, for the three months ended September 30, 2014, on which fiscal first quarter service revenue is recognized, was 11% over the prior year at $1.2 trillion.
Payments volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, for the three months ended December 31, 2014, was 11% over the prior year at $1.2 trillion.
Cross-border volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, was 8% for the three months ended December 31, 2014.
Total processed transactions, which represent transactions processed by VisaNet, for the three months ended December 31, 2014, were 17.6 billion, a 10% increase over the prior year.
Fiscal first quarter 2015 service revenues were $1.5 billion, an increase of 8% over the prior year, and are recognized based on payments volume in the prior quarter. All other revenue categories are recognized based on current quarter activity. Data processing revenues rose 9% over the prior year to $1.4 billion. International transaction revenues grew 9% over the prior year to $970 million.
Other revenues, which include the Visa Europe licensing fee, were $204 million, an increase of 14% over the prior year. Client incentives, which are a contra revenue item, were $713 million and represent 17.4% of gross revenues.
Total operating expenses were $1.1 billion for the quarter, a 6% increase over the prior year.
The effective tax rate was 30.6% for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.
Cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale investment securities were $7.5 billion at December 31, 2014.
The weighted-average number of diluted shares of class A common stock outstanding was 619 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2014. ■