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July 26 (Reuters) - French payment company Worldline on Wednesday confirmed its full-year targets after reporting a 9.4% rise in second-quarter revenue as it managed to win thousands of businesses as new customers, boosting its shares as much as 4.5%.
The group, which processes digital payments for clients ranging from merchants to government agencies, generated sales of 1.17 billion euros ($1.29 billion) in the April-June period.
Revenue at its merchant services segment, accounting for 73% of group revenue, grew 13.5%, the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.
The payment firm won more than 40,000 merchants since the beginning of the year, counting 1.4 million in total at end-June, it said in a presentation. Video game groups Blizzard and Valve, and camping group Camping Vision were among the new customers in the second quarter.
The group, which is in exclusive discussions with Credit Agricole about setting up a new payment service for businesses and its customers, said it was on-tracks for signing a deal in the third quarter and closing the transaction in the fourth quarter.
Free cash flow from continued operations grew 0.8% in the January-June period to 232 million euros, net debt stood at 1.84 billion euros at end-June.
Worldline confirmed its targets of 8-10% organic revenue growth this year and its margin before depreciation and amortization (OMDA) to improve more than 100 basispoints versus last year's on a pro forma basis.
Worldline's shares were up 3.9% at 35.86 euros at 0712 GMT, on top of the French blue-chip index CAC40. ($1 = 0.9054 euros) (Reporting by Lina Golovnya, Edited by Kirsti Knolle)