Spending by wealthy American Express $AXP cardholders pushed card volume growth to a three-year high in the first quarter, helping the company clear Wall Street's profit targets by a comfortable margin, Reuters reported.
Luxury retail spending rose 18% in the quarter, helping drive revenue up 10% to $18.9B and profit to $4.28 per share
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Spending by wealthy American Express $AXP cardholders pushed card volume growth to a three-year high in the first quarter, helping the company clear Wall Street's profit targets by a comfortable margin, Reuters reported.
The company posted earnings of $4.28 per share in the three months ended March 31. Analysts had projected $4.02 per share, according to Reuters, and $3.99 per share, according to MSN.
Revenue for the quarter reached $18.9 billion, up 10% from a year ago. Card member spending, a rise in card balances that fed net interest income, and card fee growth all contributed to the quarterly revenue increase, the company said. Analysts had expected $18.6 billion in revenue, according to MSN.
Total billed business — a measure of overall card spending — rose 10% year over year to $428 billion. Within the quarter, luxury retail spending climbed 18% and overall retail spending was up 11%, CFO Christophe Le Caillec told Reuters.
Net card fee revenue reached $2.75 billion, up from $2.33 billion in the first quarter of 2025. Net interest income came in at $4.69 billion, compared with $4.17 billion a year earlier.
Credit quality remained stable. At 2.3%, the net write-off rate was unchanged from the prior quarter and a tick below the 2.4% recorded in the same period last year. The $1.25 billion set aside for credit losses edged up from $1.22 billion in the year-earlier quarter, though it came in well below the $1.34 billion analysts had anticipated. "Credit numbers are incredibly strong... we see no noise or concerns there," Le Caillec told Reuters.
Not every travel segment performed equally well. Airline volume grew 8% for the quarter, but Le Caillec told Reuters that a surge of refund requests came late in the period after airspace closures related to the Iran conflict disrupted flights. Despite this, he described the segment's overall performance for the quarter as strong.
For the full year, the company left its 2026 outlook intact, targeting per-share earnings of $17.30 to $17.90 alongside revenue growth in the 9%-to-10% range. "Given our strong results to date, we're reaffirming our full-year 2026 guidance for 9 to 10 percent revenue growth and EPS of $17.30 to $17.90, and decided to increase our investments in marketing and technology to capitalize on long-term growth opportunities," Chairman and CEO Stephen J. Squeri said in a statement.
New card acquisitions totaled 3.1 million, a step down from the 3.4 million added in the same quarter a year earlier.
American Express stock was up about 1% in premarket trading following the results.
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