Why Unattended Retail Payments Are At A Turning Point

USA Technologies, a provider of cashless and mobile transactions for the self-service retail market, has posted another strong quarter revenue-wise but still posted a loss overall.

The company, which reported its third quarter yesterday (May 12), showed a revenue increase of 33 percent YOY, to a total Q3 revenue of $20.4 million. Overall, the company saw a quarterly loss of $5.4 million.

“We are experiencing an inflection point in the unattended retail payments market with our cashless payment solutions, while achieving record revenue and integrating an acquisition,” said Stephen P. Herbert, USA Technologies’ CEO.

“With the introduction of our ePort Interactive Service, our most progressive solution to date, our customers now can leverage a content delivery platform to directly engage with their customers. Additionally, the Premium Support Service continues to incentivize operators to move to cashless payments at 100 percent of their locations, which proliferates the acceptance of cashless payments in the self-service retail market. We view the broadening adoption of cashless payment solutions, coupled with our continued growth, as validation that USAT is positioned as the clear leader in the self-service retail market,” he added in his prepared remarks.

Some highlights of the quarter include:

• 32,000 net connections for the quarter, an increase of 129 percent
• 401,000 connections to ePort service, an increase of 33 percent, which included 6,000 new connections attributable to the VendScreen acquisition
• Record 10,825 customers, an increase of 21 percent YOY
• Quarterly record license and transaction fee revenue of $14.7 million, an increase of 33 percent YOY
• $4.3 million of cash provided by operating activities, representing the fifth straight quarter of positive operating cash flow

Looking ahead to the full year 2016, USA Technologies’ leadership team has raised its expectations and now anticipates it will add between 93,000 and 95,000 net new connections for the year. It expects total revenue to be between $76 million and $78 million.