Bangkok--10 Feb--124 Communications
MasterCard Incorporated today announced successful fourth quarter and full year results for the Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa (APMEA)[1] region. For the quarter ending 31 December, the region witnessed double-digit growth in gross dollar volume (16.4%), purchase volume[2] (17.7%), purchase transactions (17.4%), cash transactions (24.9%) and cards issued (15.6%), versus the same period in 2007.
As at 31 December 2008, 241 million MasterCard cards (excluding Maestro? and Cirrus?) had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions in APMEA. Cardholders in the region made 947 million purchase transactions in the fourth quarter of 2008 and cardholders could use their MasterCard cards at 28.5 million acceptance locations worldwide.
“In 2008, MasterCard demonstrated the strength of our customer-centric strategy and innovative suite of products which catered to the needs of our customers. Even in these distressed economic conditions, we delivered strong results,” said Andre Sekulic, president, Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa, MasterCard Worldwide. “We will remain focused on helping our customers through the difficult times by sharing our world-class market insights, assisting them in building market share, seizing new and diverse opportunities, and achieving sustainable profit growth.”
Maestro Cards
For the quarter ending 31 December, the Maestro brand mark appeared on 194 million cards in APMEA. Consumers can now make online debit point of sale purchases with their Maestro cards at 931,000 merchant locations in APMEA.
Full Year 2008 Results
For the year ended 31 December 2008, the APMEA region saw solid growth in gross dollar volume (20.1%), purchase volume (22.1%), purchase transactions (19.2%) and cash transactions (24.9%) versus 2007.
In addition to the performance highlights, MasterCard in the APMEA region also reported a number of significant achievements for the quarter ending 31 December 2008.
Contacts:
Eileen Wee, [email protected] 0 2670 4088
Elizabeth Wongwasin, [email protected] 0 2662 2266