MasterCard Profit Falls

MasterCard posted a sharp decline in first-quarter profit Friday, compared to the same quarter last year, but beat analysts’ expectations.



The credit card processing giant posted earnings of $2.80 per share, ahead of estimates of analysts polled by Reuters of $2.62 per share.

But the profit of $367.2 million was sharply lower than the comparable three months of 2008, when the company earned $446.9 million, or $3.37 a share.

First-quarter revenue fell 2.2 percent to $1.2 billion, which was in line with analysts’ expectations.

MasterCard said gross dollar volume was up 0.3 percent, on local currency basis, compared to the same quarter last year, to $550 billion