LONDON (ShareCast) - While overall trading has been as expected, Paypoint revealed lower gas consumption had pushed UK and Irish bill and general transactions down 4%, and said mobile top-ups continued to decrease as a result of the decline in the prepaid mobile sector.

However, overall transactions in the three months to the end of June climbed 5% to 189.3m, helping to drive revenue 4% higher to £53m.

Net revenues for the period totalled £29m, up 9% against £27m last year, with growth seen in bill and general, top-ups, retail services and Mobile and Online. Retail services transactions were up 29% on last year.

Romania continued to experience profitable growth, with 12.3m bill payments processed during the three months, an increase of 65%.

Dominic Taylor, PayPoint's Chief Executive, said: "Overall trading, taking seasonality of trading into account, for the period to June 30th was in line with the company's expectations. Our retail businesses are continuing to generate satisfactory growth this year.

"Combining the Mobile and Online businesses under the unified group brand should unlock better growth opportunities for the group over time. We have increased development, marketing and IT spend in the first half, the benefits of which are expected in the second half of the year and therefore, profit growth will be lower than net revenue growth in the first half."

Shares had fallen 1.14% to 1,038p by 09:21.

NR

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