American Express tops Q1 estimates, driven by new customers

American Express (AXP) released its first-quarter earnings showing a jump in revenue of 11% compared to the same period a year ago, posting $15.80 billion and just narrowly beating the Wall Street expectation of $15.77 billion. The credit card company also boasted that Gen Z and Millennial customers accounted for more than 60% of new account acquisitions globally in the quarter.

Yahoo Finance Anchors Julie Hyman and Madison Mills break down the latest development for the company and what it could mean for the stock moving forward.

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This post was written and updated by Nicholas Jacobino

Video transcript

BRAD SMITH: Let's take a look at some trending tickers. American Express posting a beat in the first quarter revenue jumping 11% from a year ago. "Yahoo Finance's" executive editor Brian Sozzi had a chance to speak with the CEO of American Express, Stephen Squeri, on the back of these results.

Brian, good to see you. What were the takeaways?

BRIAN SOZZI: Just two influential guys on the phone call right after earnings. But look, good quarter by Amex. Overall card member spending up 7% year-over-year, excluding the impact of currency good there.

International card services segment sales up 13% year-over-year. Another good quarter for Amex on getting more millennial card members onto their platform and spending pretty aggressively.

Brad, you could appreciate this one, having covered Delta very closely. Another good strong quarter with the folks over at Delta. Stephen's thinking about now what else they could be doing with Delta in the months and years ahead.

Nonetheless, this is what Stephen told me. I asked him because we have been seeing some pressure on consumer spending. We saw within a lot of the results by the big banks. JP Morgan, to a lesser extent, Bank of America, nonetheless, because of inflation.

Stephen said, look, our customers are a little wealthier. They're feeling pretty good. We have a premium customer base. They have more money. And they're out there spending. They're traveling. They're going to restaurants. You name it.

So that higher end consumer continues to benefit all things Amex. And why you're seeing, I think, just better results from this company in their cards business compared to some of the big banks that we heard this week.

SEANA SMITH: And, Brian, also just a willingness here to pay for fees. So much, I think in the past, consumers were a bit hesitant to pay for some of these fees, when it comes to the credit cards.

But when you take a look at these numbers here, at least, for Amex. Well, the cards that come with a fee accounted for 70% of their new account acquisitions. Really showing, speaking to your point there, the strength of the consumer, particularly, their consumer right now, and the willingness to pay up for that because of the rewards.

BRIAN SOZZI: My friends at Visa, Mastercard are going to squash me on this. But look, the Amex card, it's just cool. You get a lot of stuff. And you pay what, $6.95 a year for the card.

You got a lot of perks. You pay even more than that, you can get even more perks at Delta and hang out in the sky lounge. It all just works. The ecosystem this company has created, of course, is a key Warren Buffett holding.

But the ecosystem they have created, and partly why Buffett owns the stock, is because they have that ecosystem. And they do have wealthier consumers. And they have strong relationships. Nonetheless, a couple of takeaways for investors here, if you want to boil down this quarter. Added 3.4 million card members in the quarter equals impressive. That's a really big number.

High-income consumer is doing just fine, as I mentioned. But do keep an eye on the health of small businesses. This was the first time. We talked to Stephen every quarter. First time I heard him call out some weakness in small business spending. So something to watch. Is that a sign of things maybe slowing down the economy towards the back half of the year? Unclear to me. But something to keep an eye on.