Commenting on the quarter, Chairman, President and CEO Murray D. Martin said, “During the quarter we reached several key milestones in the areas of software and digital solutions that mark our progress in expanding our value proposition beyond physical mail. As a result, we have decided to increase our investments to bring these new solutions to market more quickly to take advantage of emerging and growing opportunities.
“We are pleased to note that at the end of the quarter we signed a multi-year agreement with Facebook to offer global geocoding, reverse geocoding and other location intelligence applications / data for integration into Facebook's applications and services. Our best of breed technology will provide Facebook developers, and ultimately their users, high-performance, high-precision location processing, across desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile platforms. This is a great example of the kinds of solutions Pitney Bowes is developing to help our customers deliver more personalized, relevant communications to their customers.
“Our Volly™ secure digital mail delivery platform and our SMB customer communications solutions are other examples of the solutions we are increasing investment in and are deploying to help customers of all sizes manage their communications in a changing communications environment. In April, we announced a partnership in which Australia Post will become the first national postal service to incorporate Volly into its digital offerings. Australia Post delivers more than five billion pieces of mail annually to more than ten million households. The service will launch later this year. We continue to invest in Volly in the U.S. as we move toward an initial consumer launch later this year.
“We achieved increased global sales of our Connect+™ product line in the quarter, and are continuing to gain approval in key European markets. We will also launch a small business cloud-connected metering solution this month to web-enable more of our U.S. mailing customer base. We are also partnering to integrate and expand our global ecommerce capabilities.
“We have a number of opportunities that we expect to be growth contributors in the near future. We are stepping up our investment in the second quarter to achieve our go-to-market goals. To pay for these investments, we are expanding upon our productivity initiatives. We believe that these actions will enable us to accelerate investments for growth, while delivering expected earnings within our annual guidance range, even in the current business climate.”
Business Segment Results
The company reports its business segments in two groups based on the customers it primarily serves: Small and Medium Business (SMB) Solutions and Enterprise Business Solutions. The SMB Solutions group consists of the company’s global Mailing operations. The company aligns its SMB business segments into North America Mailing and International Mailing to reflect how the business is managed. North America Mailing includes the operations of U.S. and Canada Mailing. International Mailing includes all other SMB operations around the world. The Enterprise Business Solutions group includes the company’s global Production Mail, Software, Management Services, Mail Services and Marketing Services operations.
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SMB Solutions |
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| 1Q 2012 | Y-O-Y Change | Change ex Currency | |||||
| Revenue | $629 million | (7%) | (7%) | ||||
| EBIT | $198 million | (2%) | |||||
| Within the SMB Solutions Group: | |||||||
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North America Mailing |
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| 1Q 2012 | Y-O-Y Change | Change ex Currency | |||||
| Revenue | $461 million | (9%) | (9%) | ||||
| EBIT | $178 million | (1%) | |||||
