Beating expectations, Worldpay reported total organic net revenue growth of 10% in the fourth quarter of 2018, aided largely by the payment processing firm’s technology solutions segment, which grew 21%.
The segment provides merchant acquiring, payment processing and related services to merchants that primarily accept payments through e-commerce and integrated payment solutions. At $443.7 million in the fourth quarter, technology solutions accounted for 41% of Worldpay’s revenues, up from 37% in 2017.
Executives during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday credited “strong execution” in e-commerce and acceleration of new integrated payments sales. They also hinted at growth yet to come, as technology solutions is expected to swell to about 50% of the company’s revenues by the end of 2021.
Charles Drucker, executive chairman and CEO, said continuing to deliver new payment capabilities to the market and expanding global reach are among Worldpay’s priorities for 2019.
“We are also developing next-generation APIs that will enable us to leapfrog our competition by allowing our clients to quickly and easily integrate into Worldpay,” he said. “With these APIs, clients will be able to connect to us in hours instead of days, and they will be able to access the breadth of our capabilities, bringing the power of our model and our scale to them in a way that’s easy to consume.”
Drucker said the company also wants to accelerate client on-boarding through automation that will “enable SMBs to begin processing with Worldpay more quickly at the point of sale, which will speed up their access to our innovative technology and breadth of capabilities.” One of these capabilities, he said, will be a data-driven “one-of-a-kind analytic platform” that creates insights for clients across multiple domestic acquirer relationships.
Additionally, he said Worldpay plans to invest in growth through M&A.
“If there are strategic things that will help grow our revenue in the technology solutions area or fast-growing verticals, we’ll jump into the market and actively pursue M&A,” Drucker said, adding there are properties Worldpay believes can help accelerate the company in 2021 and beyond.
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CFO Stephanie Ferris said Worldpay achieved net revenue of $1.05 billion, including $6 million in foreign exchange headwinds, in the fourth quarter. She said the revenue growth of 21% in technology solutions for the fourth quarter was up from 17% in the third quarter. Although full-year growth for 2018 came in at 20%, Ferris said the segment is expected to grow in the mid- to upper-teens for 2019.
Asked whether the outlook was the result of tough comparisons or just some conservatism, Ferris said the company did see some benefits from cryptocurrencies in 2018 that it is not expecting in 2019, citing “$17 million of crypto headwind.”
Worldpay shares surged 8% Tuesday on the earnings report. Morgan Stanley’s new price target on the stock of $103 is up from $97. Shares were at $97.25 as of about 3:30 p.m. ET. Worldpay has a market cap of $30.4 billion.






