The New York-based company said Friday it earned $3.11 billion, or $4.53 a share, compared with $2.89 billion, or $4.08 a share, in the same period a year ago. The results beat analysts’ forecasts, who were looking for AmEx to post a profit of $4.40 per share, according to FactSet.
AmEx continues to benefit from global economic growth that has disproportionately benefited wealthy and high-net-worth individuals, as its customer base skews heavily toward demographics with platinum cards, gold cards and other high-end credit cards. Its customers often put almost all of their spending on a credit card and pay off the card at the end of each month. The average AmEx customer spent $6,759 on their cards in the quarter, up from $6,393 in the same period a year ago.
But at the same time, the company is spending heavily to keep those customers as it faces increasing competition from other high-end credit card products like JPMorgan Chase’s Sapphire Reserve Card, Citigroup’s Strata card and Capital One’s Venture X brand. The company’s quarterly expenses rose 12% from a year ago, driven by increased marketing spending as well as a refresh of its credit card products.
While the company raised its guidance for how much revenue it expects to bring in this year, the company did not change its profit estimate for the year, as the company plans to put more resources into marketing and bringing in new customers. The company is also expected to invest more in technologies like artificial intelligence like other Fortune 500 companies.
Those efforts seem to be paying off. The company signed up another 3 million customers in the second quarter, three-quarters of those new customers signed up for an AmEx card with an annual fee.
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