美国运通二季度营收增长10%并上调全年收入增速至10%，但维持EPS指引

Earnings Call Insights: American Express (AXP) Q2 2026
Management View
- "We delivered another excellent quarter with 10% revenue growth and EPS of $4.53" and "based on our better-than-expected performance year-to-date, we are raising our full year revenue growth guidance to 10%" while "we continue to expect full year EPS of $17.30 to $17.90" (Chairman & CEO Stephen Squeri).
- "If you're outperforming your expectations and you are raising your revenue guidance, why aren't you also raising EPS guidance?" and "we can either drop the overperformance to the bottom line and buy back more shares or we can invest to grow the business further... We've chosen the latter" (Chairman & CEO Squeri).
- "Our Platinum portfolio is now the fastest growing in our U.S. consumer business" and "65% of new consumer accounts" came from "Millennials and Gen Zs" (Chairman & CEO Squeri).
- "We had another strong quarter with revenue growth of 10% and EPS up 11% year-over-year" and "provision expense of $1.1 billion included a reserve release of $191 million" (Chief Financial Officer Christophe Le Caillec).
- "We returned $2.9 billion of capital to our shareholders, including $0.6 billion of dividends and $2.2 billion of share repurchases" and "an ROE of 36% this quarter" (CFO Le Caillec).
Outlook
- "We are raising our revenue guidance and now expect full year revenue growth of 10%" and "as we increase investments in new customer acquisition and technology development, we are maintaining our full year EPS guidance of $17.30 to $17.90" (CFO Le Caillec).
- "Starting in Q4, we expect a quarterly impact of around 1 percentage point to spend growth and around 2.5 percentage point impact to net interest income" from the small business co-brand portfolio transfers, and "the impact to revenue -- to total revenue is about 1 percentage point" (CFO Le Caillec).
- "We expect marketing to be up by around 10% year-over-year in the second half of the year" and "we now expect the ratio to be between 44% and 45% for the full year" for the VCE-to-revenue ratio (CFO Le Caillec).
- "We expect growth to accelerate in Q3 and to exit the year in the high teens" for card fees (CFO Le Caillec).
Financial Results
- "We delivered another excellent quarter with 10% revenue growth and EPS of $4.53" (Chairman & CEO Squeri).
- "Pretax income was up 15%, while net income was up 8% due to prior year tax discretes" and "spend growth stepped up to the highest level we've seen in 3 years" (CFO Le Caillec).
- "Overall spend was up 9.4% FX adjusted" with "Goods & Services spending up 9% and T&E up 10%" and "global Amex travel bookings up 22% year-over-year" (CFO Le Caillec).
- "Net card fees reached record levels" and "Net card fees... up 15.4%" while "net interest income was up 11%" (CFO Le Caillec).
Q&A
- Sanjay Sakhrani, Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division: "I'm just trying to think about the sustainability of that outperformance?"; CFO Le Caillec: "One of the biggest contributor to the acceleration is the Platinum refresh" and "momentum" is from "new card member acquisition" and "tenured card members that are increasing their spend"; Chairman & CEO Squeri: "with the refresh, engagement has been really accelerated" and cited "a 22% increase in travel bookings".
- Ryan Nash, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division: asked where reinvestment is going and sustainability into 2027; Chairman & CEO Squeri: investments include "technology" plus "a little bit in TheFork" and "card acquisition," adding "those things weren't on the docket at the beginning of the year" (Agentic Commerce).
- Donald Fandetti, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division: asked about middle-market and fintech competition; Chairman & CEO Squeri: "it’s middle market where we have seen the softness" and "Center... will help us not only retain business, but actually win new business".
- Craig Maurer, Financial Technology Partners LP: asked about URR adjustment and incentives; CFO Le Caillec: URR change had "a small benefit" and for the full year "it's going to be de minimis"; Chairman & CEO Squeri: NFL/Fanatics are "in the plan" and "in the run rate".
- Richard Shane, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division: asked about attrition after fee changes; CFO Le Caillec: "we're not seeing anything on attrition" and retention was "flat year-over-year" after "we raised the fee by $200".
- Mark DeVries, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: asked ROI of Resy/Tock/TheFork; Chairman & CEO Squeri: "we don't look at it" on a stand-alone P&L, calling them "open platforms" that support "customer acquisition" and "card member retention".
- Terry Ma, Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division: asked fee growth acceleration timing; CFO Le Caillec: card fee growth acceleration is driven by Platinum repricing and "we expect that card fees are going to exit this year with a growth rate in the high teens".
- Robert Wildhack, Autonomous Research US LP: asked NII growth slowdown and outlook; CFO Le Caillec: Q2 included transfer of "the Loews portfolio" impacting NII growth "by about 1 percentage point," and after Q3 transfer "the impact to the NII line is going to be 2.5%" but "impact to net income and earnings is really negligible".
- Darrin Peller, Wolfe Research, LLC: asked about AI leverage; Chairman & CEO Squeri: in tech, AI is driving "a 30% to 40% decrease in cycle time" and in servicing there was "a lack of acceleration in hiring".
- Mihir Bhatia, BofA Securities, Research Division: asked July trends and billings assumptions; CFO Le Caillec: "we're not going to get into trying to guide on billing" and expects the momentum to continue, but the portfolio transfers create "about a 1% headwind".
Sentiment Analysis
- Analysts were slightly negative to neutral, with repeated durability questions including "sustainability" (Sakhrani) and probing on "NII growth" noise (Wildhack) and billings visibility (Bhatia).
- Management tone was positive in prepared remarks and explanatory in Q&A, with Chairman & CEO Squeri emphasizing reinvestment choice ("We've chosen the latter") and CFO Le Caillec repeatedly framing portfolio-sale impacts as "baked in" and "negligible" to earnings.
- Versus last quarter, management language shifted from reaffirming a range to explicitly raising revenue growth guidance ("raising our full year revenue growth guidance to 10%"), while keeping EPS guidance unchanged and tying it to reinvestment.
Quarter-over-quarter Comparison
- Guidance language moved from "reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance of 9% to 10% annual revenue growth" (Q1) to "raising our full year revenue growth guidance to 10%" (Q2), while EPS guidance stayed "$17.30 to $17.90" in both quarters (Chairman & CEO Squeri).
- Q2 emphasized incremental second-half investments and M&A-related needs: "our proposed acquisition of TheFork... did not have it originally in our plan" (Chairman & CEO Squeri), compared with Q1’s heavier focus on launching a U.S. commercial product roadmap and the "ACE Developer Kit".
- Analysts’ focus shifted from Q1 questions about potential travel disruption ("airline growth softened") to Q2 questions on parsing U.S. consumer strength and NII mechanics tied to the co-brand portfolio transfers.
Risks and Concerns
- "We do expect to see impacts from the sale of the small business co-brand portfolios" including "around 1 percentage point" spend headwind and "around 2.5 percentage point" NII headwind by Q4 (CFO Le Caillec).
- Geopolitical/travel disruption was addressed as localized: "there is no evidence of a general slowdown" despite seeing category and route impacts (CFO Le Caillec).
- Reward-cost variability was flagged: "we have seen stronger spend than we expected" in rewards-heavy categories and "these factors are contributing to a slightly higher VCE ratio than we originally expected" (CFO Le Caillec).
Final Takeaway
Management described Q2 as another quarter of double-digit revenue growth and raised full-year revenue growth guidance to 10% while keeping EPS guidance at $17.30 to $17.90, explicitly attributing the EPS posture to reinvesting outperformance into customer acquisition, technology, and the proposed TheFork acquisition. Executives repeatedly pointed to Platinum-driven engagement, strong credit metrics, and expected second-half headwinds from co-brand portfolio transfers that pressure certain growth rates but were described as having negligible earnings impact.
Read the full Earnings Call Transcript