Jack Henry Earnings Rise

Jack Henry(JKHY Quote), a provider of data processing services, said its first-quarter earnings rose 10.25% from the year-ago period, on strong performance of its support and service segment.

The Monett, Mo.-based company earned $21.41 million, or 23 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with $19.42 million, or 21 cents a share, a year ago. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call were expecting earnings of $20.71 million, or 22 cents a share.

First-quarter revenue rose 10% from a year ago to $150.61 million as against analysts' expectation of $150.26 million.

First-quarter operating income rose 7.72% from a year ago to $32.92 million and operating margin decreased to 21.86% from 22.31%.

By segment, first-quarter revenue from license segment declined 8.1% from a year ago to $15.54 million, from support and service segment it increased 16.27% from a year ago to $115.58 million and from hardware segment it declined 5.68% from a year ago to $19.5 million.

"During our first fiscal quarter of 2007, we continued to experience the strong demand for our support and service offerings, which is reflected by a solid increase in every component within this revenue line compared to the same quarter a year ago. Also, during the quarter we continued to experience increasing demand for the products we market under our ProfitStars brand to non-core customers, which had a positive impact on both our revenue and earnings for the quarter compared to the prior year," the company said.