American Express Company

Press Q1 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star, then one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a tone indicating you have been placed in queue. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star, then two. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. Should you require assistance during the call, please press star, then zero. 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, Mr. Kartik Ramachandran. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Daryl, 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 Squirey, Chairman and CEO, who will start with some remarks about the company's progress and results. And then Christophe Lecayac, 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 Christophe. With that, let me turn it over to Steve.

Thank you. Q1 was another strong quarter with revenues up 11% year-over-year to $15.8 billion and EPS up 39% to $3.33. The trends we've seen for the past several years continued through the first quarter of 2024. Our double-digit revenue increase was driven by strong spending growth, up 7% overall on an FX-adjusted basis, with U.S. consumer card spending up 8% in the quarter. and spending from international card members up 13% on an FX-adjusted basis. Spending by U.S. SME card members continued to be soft, but new customer acquisitions, retention, and credit on our small business products all continue to be strong. Fee revenues again grew by double digits, up 16% on an FX-adjusted basis. We continue to attract high-spending, high-credit-quality customers to the franchise, with new card acquisitions accelerating quarter over quarter, adding 3.4 million new cards in the quarter. Our fee-based products accounted for approximately 70% of the new account acquisitions globally, and we continue to see strong demand from millennial and Gen Z consumers, who accounted for over 60% of the new consumer account acquisitions globally. Finally, our credit metrics continue to be best in class. The ongoing momentum in our business has resulted the great work of our colleagues across the company and the loyalty and engagement of our premium customers around the world. Based on our performance and the trends we've seen through the first quarter, we are reaffirming our full year guidance of nine to 11% revenue growth and EPS of $12.65 to $13.15. Our first quarter results continue to show that our strategy is working and we feel good about where we are and where we are heading. In 10 days, we'll be hosting our 2024 Investor Day. At that session, we'll have a series of presentations from our senior business leaders that, taken together, will demonstrate why we are confident that our long-term growth aspiration is the right one. We will discuss our strategy for growing our premium consumer base in the US through our membership model, our plans for winning the recovery in the U.S. small business space, our runway for growth in international, our progress in expanding merchant coverage and enhancing our network capabilities globally, how we're driving efficiency, growth, and service through technology, and how it all comes together from a financial perspective. We'll end our investor day with a Q&A session. Christophe will now take you through a detailed look at Q1 performance.