Payment processor WEX Inc. improved its financial performance and beat industry expectations in the first quarter, despite continued economic challenges that included lower gasoline prices and unfavorable foreign currency exchange rates.

The South Portland-based company, which provides payment-processing technology to the transportation, travel and health care industries in the United States and abroad, reported first-quarter revenue Wednesday of $205.9 million, up 2 percent from $202.3 million in the first quarter of 2015.

Net income for the quarter was $23.1 million, or 59 cents a share, compared with $22.3 million, or 57 cents a share, for the first quarter of 2015. The company’s quarterly earnings of 97 cents a share before adjusting for changes in fuel prices and currency exchange rates beat analyst expectations by 9 cents.

Positive developments for WEX included a 3 percent increase in the average number of vehicles it serviced worldwide compared with a year earlier. Total fuel transactions processed by WEX increased 2 percent from the first quarter of 2015 to 99.6 million, the company reported. Payment-processing transactions increased 9 percent to 89.1 million.

In addition, purchases of the company’s travel and corporate services cards grew 18 percent to $4.9 billion, from $4.2 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

On the negative side, the average customer expenditure per payment-processing transaction decreased by 25 percent from the first quarter of 2015 to $48.67, WEX said. The U.S. retail fuel price decreased 23 percent to $1.97 per gallon from $2.57 per gallon in the first quarter of 2015, reducing the company’s revenue per transaction. WEX earns a small percentage of the total amount of each payment it processes.

In an interview Wedneday, WEX President and CEO Melissa Smith said the company’s lack of acquisitions in the first quarter led to an earnings statement that is relatively “clean” and offers a good reflection of its actual performance.

WEX has grown significantly through acquisitions over the past few years, but Smith said its focus for 2016 is on “organic” growth, attracting new customers and developing new products and services.

For example, the company recently introduced ClearView, a web-based analytics tool that integrates and analyzes fleet-related data to uncover cost-saving opportunities for customers in the transportation industry. Smith said interest in the product has been high.

“There’s a lot of sizzle around it,” she said.

While WEX cannot control certain variables affecting its business, such as fuel prices, Smith said the company has worked to minimize the overall impact of those variables by improving efficiency and branching out into areas such as travel and health care, where the price of gasoline is not a factor. The company’s health care payments business has grown by 35 percent over the past year, she said.

“We’ve been moving for a while to diversify the business,” Smith said.

Still, WEX is keeping a close eye on the futures market to get a sense of where fuel prices are headed next. Smith said the company anticipates a rise in fuel prices in the summer, followed by a decline later in the year. It anticipates that the average price per gallon for gasoline in the U.S. will be about $2.14 per gallon for the entire year.

WEX is a publicly held company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WEX. It has offices in 10 countries and employs more than 2,000 people worldwide, including 700 in Maine.

The company’s share price went up more than 6 percent following Wednesday morning’s earnings release. It closed at $95.70, up $5.45 for the day.

The price boost was partly the result of an upward revision in the company’s projected 2016 earnings. WEX reported that it now anticipates generating $879 million to $909 million in revenue for the year, up from an earlier projection of $860 million to $890 million. It also adjusted its net income projection for 2016 upward from $3.80 to $4.10 per share to $4.07 to $4.37 per share.

Investment research firm Zacks Equity Research issued a report Wednesday saying that WEX is a strong player in an industry – financial transaction services – that appears well-positioned for the future.

“(WEX) has seen solid earnings estimate revision activity over the past month, suggesting analysts are becoming a bit more bullish on the firm’s prospects in both the short and long term,” the report says.

Smith praised her employees for finding ways to improve the company’s performance at a time when economic conditions are less than ideal.

“Kudos to the people who work at WEX,” she said. “They really pulled it together.”