Mastercard Q3 Profit Tops Views

reported better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter on Thursday. The Purchase, New York-based company reported quarterly net income of $977 million, or $0.86 per share, compared to $1.02 billion, or $0.87 per share, in the year-ago quarter. Excluding special items, the company's earnings came in at$0.91 per share. Its revenue surged to $2.53 billion from $2.49 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.88 per share on revenue of $2.54 billion. The average estimate among 112 Estimize users was for earnings of $0.89 per share on revenue of $2.54 billion. Gross dollar volume rose 13 percent in the quarter, while purchase volume increased 12 percent year-over-year. During the third quarter, the company repurchased around 10 million shares of Class A common stock at a cost of around $930 million. "We are pleased with the results we delivered this quarter, in spite of the ongoing uncertainty in the global economy. We continue to see double-digit growth in both volume and transactions in most of our regions around the world," said Ajay Banga, president and CEO, MasterCard. "As the world becomes more digitally driven, our innovations and investments in things such as MasterPass, EMV and biometrics are helping to redefine the way people shop and pay with convenience and security." Mastercard shares rose 1.51 percent to $101.60 in pre-market trading.