It’s official: Coinstar is now Outerwall

Shareholders of Coinstar, the company behind the ubiquitous RedBox dvd rental machines, have adopted the name Outerwall as a new corporate identify.

The name change was confirmed at the company's annual meeting of shareholder on June 27, but an official tally of voting results won’t be available until July 2.

The company previously indicated that the name Outerwall signifies innovation and pushing the walls of retail out into a new dimension through current and future automated retail solutions. The name change is also said to reflect the evolution of the company from a single coin-counting kiosk business into multiple automated retail businesses. As for the name Outerwall, it was selected as an umbrella corporate brand because it encompasses current operations and provides a platform for future opportunities, according to the company.

Outerwall is certainly an intriguing name and it is probably better than Coinstar which stopped being an appropriate name for the parent company when the RedBox business surpassed the coin-counting business on which the company was founded 20 years ago.

Outwall operates about 43,000 DVD kiosks at 36,100 locations and more than 20,000 coin-counting machines.

The move comes as sales slowed and profits declined during the first quarter ended March 31. Sales for the quarter increased 1.1% to $574.7 million, while profits fell to $22.6 million, less than half the $53.7 million the company reported during the comparable period the prior year due to a range of increased expenses.