VeriFone Systems Inc., the payments hardware company, is going whole hog into apps.
In the second quarter of next year, VeriFone plans to unveil an app marketplace for its products and services. The app marketplace will “[enable] our clients and third-party app developers to create and deploy payment and commerce applications on VeriFone devices,” the company’s CEO, Paul Galant, told investors yesterday.
Whether VeriFone is late to the app marketplace game or not, the company certainly seems to be seeing green shoots. VeriFone increased its revenue growth guidance for fiscal year 2016 to 5% from 3%. This is mainly driven by a “global acceleration of cash to electronic payments,” Galant said:
Our on-the-ground presence in so many different markets around the globe gives us insight and confidence that the world’s move from cash to electronic payments is in fact accelerating and will gain further momentum throughout 2016. Evidence of this includes the move to terminal fiscalization by several governments around the globe, demand for 3G portable and mPOS devices the global growth in mobile wallets and programs for the unbanked.
In tangible terms, VeriFone said its revenue guidance for next year is now $2.11 billion from $2.09 billion, which is expected to translate into earnings per share in the range of $2.15 to $2.17 and free cash flow of approximately $175 million.
VeriFone [ticker: PAY] has a market capitalization of $3.1 billion.