Coinstar Acquires Leading Prepaid Provider CellCards Of Illinois; Move Strengthens Company Presence in E-Payments Market And Expands Distribution.

Business Editors

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 2004

Coinstar, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSTR) today announced its acquisition of CellCards of Illinois, L.L.C., formerly a majority owned subsidiary of American Payment Systems, and one of the nation's largest distributors of prepaid products. The acquisition adds new drug store point-of-sale locations, and combined with Coinstar's existing kiosk network, brings the Company's total number of distribution points to approximately 25,000 in North America. In addition, Coinstar will broaden its prepaid product offerings, and provide an in-lane product delivery option to all of its retailers.

"By acquiring CellCards, we can now bring our retail partners a total e-payments solution," said Steve Verleye, general manager of Coinstar's Electronic Payment Solutions. "With this acquisition, we move from a company that primarily sold coin counting services on kiosks to the grocery industry, to a company moving towards a range of consumer products available via a number of distribution methods in multiple classes of trade."

"CellCards' success to date is based on understanding retailer needs and providing the right mix of high-quality products to create the potential for multiple sales to consumers," said Mike Herold, president of CellCards. "Coinstar's strength in self-service kiosks and broad distribution in supermarkets, combined with our prepaid product offering and drug store penetration is very complementary and will create great opportunities for cross-selling."

As part of the acquisition, Coinstar Inc. has engaged the services of ATM industry veteran and founder of Cash Resources, Sam Jonas, to accelerate the integration and expansion of the CellCards' business.

"The prepaid products category represents the largest growth opportunity in the payments systems industry today," said Jonas. "The collective experience, product range, and existing distribution that Coinstar and CellCards provide will be powerful tools in bringing this new category of products to market."

CellCards is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Coinstar, Inc., and the management team has signed employment agreements with Coinstar and will continue to operate the business based in Chicago.

Founded in 1998, Chicago-based CellCards offers a broad set of prepaid products including wireless, long distance and MasterCard(R) cards. In addition, the company offers bill payment capabilities for utilities and other common services. The company has multi-year agreements with national drug store retailers CVS, Eckerds, and Walgreen.

About Coinstar Inc.

Coinstar Inc. owns and operates the only nationwide network of supermarket-based machines that offer coin counting and other electronic services. The company has more than 10,000 Coinstar(R) machines linked by a sophisticated interactive network throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Coinstar is a registered trademark of Coinstar, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to Coinstar, Inc.'s integration of CellCards, new product offerings (and anticipated financial impact of the acquisition), all of which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. These are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "believe," "expect," "intend," "anticipate," "goals," variations of such words, and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that the statement is not forward-looking. The forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may vary significantly from the results expressed or implied in such statements. Differences may result from actions taken by Coinstar, Inc., as well as from risks and uncertainties beyond Coinstar, Inc.'s control. Actual results may vary significantly from the results expressed or implied in such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the ability to integrate and manage the operations of the new subsidiary, retention of key employees and consultants related to CellCards, competition, and uncertainties relating to the ultimate success of new business initiatives, including but not limited to the ability to attract customers and reach agreements with retail and other partners for the installation of the machines. The foregoing list of risks and uncertainties is illustrative, but by no means exhaustive. For more information on factors that may affect future performance, please review the most recent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Coinstar, Inc. These forward-looking statements reflect Coinstar, Inc.'s expectations as of March 15, 2004. Coinstar, Inc. undertakes no obligation to update the information provided herein.