MasterCard's first quarter revenue was $658 million, a 10% increase over the same period last year, adjusted for the impact of currency fluctuation. Net income for the quarter was $93 million, or $0.93 per share, compared to $74 million, or $0.74 per share for the first three months of 2004, a 26% increase.

Fueling the higher revenue was growth in MasterCard's gross dollar volume (GDV), which increased 10.9% to $379.6 billion. At the same time, worldwide purchase volume climbed 11.4% during the quarter, to $277.2 billion. The growth was driven by increasing numbers of MasterCard cardholders using their MasterCard credit and debit cards both at home and abroad. Cardholders now use the 697.9 million MasterCard cards issued by MasterCard's global customer base at more than 23 million acceptance locations around the world.

"MasterCard's continued growth demonstrates the vitality of our brand, our unsurpassed worldwide merchant acceptance, our expanding portfolio of payment products, and the success of our customer-centric strategy," said Robert W. Selander, president and chief executive officer. "MasterCard's focus on broadening our customized services to our financial institution customers, enhancing our relationships with merchants that accept our cards, and developing innovative payment solutions and services clearly differentiates us from the competition."

Chris McWilton, MasterCard's chief financial officer pointed out that "despite pricing pressure in an increasingly competitive payments marketplace, the first quarter of 2005 represents the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth for MasterCard. This growth underscores our ability to continue to increase MasterCard's profitability while delivering enhanced value to our key stakeholders."

In the first three months of 2005, operating expenses as a percentage of total revenue were reduced to 77% from 80% in same period in 2004. Overall operating expenses increased 6%, adjusted for the impact of currency fluctuation. MasterCard's effective tax rate in the first quarter was 35.3%, unchanged from the same period last year.Download the document now 31.7 kb (Adobe Acrobat Document)