(RTTNews) - ATM, security and election systems maker Diebold Inc. (DBD: News ), Tuesday reported a loss for the third quarter versus a profit last year, primarily due to a significant loss on the sale of discontinued operations. Revenues declined 26% from last year comparable period. Looking ahead, the company revised its earnings guidance for 2009 anticipating a broader revenue decline. The company's shares are trading down more than 6% on the NYSE.

Third-quarter net loss attributable to the North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold was $7.15 million or $0.11 per share, compared with net income of $46.51 million or $0.70 per share in the prior year period.

The three-month period recorded an income from continuing operations of $24.48 million or $0.37 per share, compared with $47.61 million or $0.72 per share last year. The company realized a loss of $31.4 million from the previous closure of its EMEA-based enterprise security operations and also incurred restructuring charges of $0.02 per share, related to severance costs.

Excluding these unusual charges, non-GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations for the quarter declined 67% to $0.39 from $1.18 in the year-ago period. On average, seven analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.41 per share for the quarter.

Net sales for the quarter dropped 26% to $645.22 million from $869.08 million in the comparable period. Analysts estimated revenues of $737.50 million for the quarter.
Revenue decline for the period was led by lower demand in the Financial self-service segment, revenues from which dropped 21% year-on-year to $485.34 million, further hurt by a similar 21% decline in security solutions net sales to $158.37 million. Net sales also suffered the absence of $58.58 million from the sale of Brazilian election systems that helped sales in the year-ago period.

Geographically, revenue decline for the third quarter was shared by a 24% year-on-year fall in Americas region to $475.52 million, a 20% fall in the Asia Pacific segments to $98.14 million and a 40% decline in sales from other regions.

Total cost of goods favorably declined to $493.01 million from $641.15 million year-ago. The company said it continued to " significantly reduce operating expenses on a dollar basis", bringing down the charges to $121.04 million from $161.88 million last year. Operating margins still suffered a decline from year-ago data, dropping to 4.8% from 7.6%.

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