Cold weather and growing internet sales helped PayPoint achieve strong first quarter results.

Revenue for PayPoint increased by 10% to £53m in the first quarter of the year while the comany’s overall transactions climbed to 181 million, compared to 146 million in the same period last year, driven by a 24% growth in internet transactions.

Its UK and Irish bill and general payment transactions increased by 21% compared to last year. This growth has been partly attributed to the poor weather during the quarter. Retail service transactions such as ATMs, debit/credit cards, parcels and mobile phone SIM cards also increased by 26%. Mobile top-ups decreased during the period due to the reduction in the prepaid phone sector.

The number of UK and Ireland retail PayPoint sites grew by 43 to 24,430 since the start of the financial year.

PayPoint’s parcel service Collect+ has also grown over the past 12 months. The number of transactions have risen from 0.6 million in 2011 to 1.6 million this year. It has also increased the number of sites offering the service by 124 to 4,845 since the start of the year.

Chief executive Dominic Taylor said the results “were in line with market expectations”.