American Express Company (AXP) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

April 20, 2023 8:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Express Q1 2023 Earnings Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Head of Investor Relations, Ms. Kerri Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Kerri Bernstein – Head-Investor Relations

Thank you, Donna, and thank you all for joining today's call. As a reminder, before we begin, today's discussion contains forward-looking statements about the company's future business and financial performance. These are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today's presentation slides and in our reports on file with the SEC.

The discussion today also contains non-GAAP financial measures. The comparable GAAP financial measures are included in this quarter's earnings materials as well as the earnings materials for the prior periods we discussed. All of these are posted on our website at ir.americanexpress.com. We'll begin today with Steve Squeri, Chairman and CEO, who will start with some remarks about the company's progress and results; and then Jeff Campbell, Chief Financial Officer, will provide a more detailed review of our financial performance. After that, we'll move to a Q&A session on the results with both Steve and Jeff.

With that, let me turn it over to Steve.

Steve Squeri – Chairman and CEO

Thanks, Kerri. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today on our first quarter earnings call. Back in January, we laid out our guidance for 2023 of 15% to 17% revenue growth and double-digit earnings per share growth. Our first quarter results are tracking to this full year guidance. Revenues were a record $14.3 billion in the quarter, up 22%, which is well above our full year expectations. Stronger spending growth outside the U.S. and in T&E offset some softness in U.S. small business spending. EPS came in a bit higher than our original plan expectation. Our plan calls for quarterly EPS to grow sequentially through the year as our revenue growth continues.

Billed business was up 16% globally year-over-year on an FX-adjusted basis. T&E spending was up 39% year-over-year on an FX adjusted basis due to the grow over effect – due to grow over benefit from the impact of the Omicron variant in last year's results. We saw strong demand across all T&E categories and customer types. Spending at restaurants continues to be a bright spot with growth accelerating to 28% on an FX adjusted basis year-over-year. In fact, March was a record month for reservations booked through our Resy platform. The platform now has more than 40 million users globally, an increase of 5 million in the last six months.