News

Rent-A-Center credits kiosks for revenue increase

Rent-A-Center announced an increase of 2 percent in total revenues for third quarter 2014

October 21, 2014

Rent-A-Center announced an increase of 2 percent in total revenues for third quarter 2014.

Total revenue increased by $14.7 million at $769.5 million, compared to Q3 2013 at $745.8 million, the company said. Rent-A-Center attributed the 2-percent increase primarily to the Acceptance Now kiosks and the Mexico segment, which earned $6.9 million.

Acceptance Now kiosks allow customers to apply for payment plans without having their credit checked. The program earned $36.6 million dollars for Q3 2014. The company saw a 1.9 percent increase in same-store sales compared to the prior year's quarter due to the 25.7-percent increase in Acceptance Now and 25.9-percent increase in the Mexico segment.

"As we expected, same-store sales improved again versus the previous quarter in our core U.S. business, aided by the roll-out of smartphones in July. In addition, Acceptance Now continued to deliver consistently strong same-store sales growth. As a result of the performance of these two businesses, our earnings for the third quarter 2014 met our expectations," CEO Robert D. Davis said in the company announcement.

"At the same time, these results confirm our urgency to execute on the transformation we outlined in February, with a focus on operational and infrastructure initiatives such as introducing a new labor model for our core U.S. stores, developing a new supply chain, formulating a customer-focused value-based pricing strategy and implementing new technology into our Acceptance Now locations," Davis said.