Global payments company American Express (NYSE: AXP) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q4 CY2025, but sales rose 10.6% year on year to $17.57 billion. Its GAAP profit of $3.53 per share was in line with analysts’ consensus estimates.
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American Express (AXP) Q4 CY2025 Highlights:
- Revenue: $17.57 billion vs analyst estimates of $18.93 billion (10.6% year-on-year growth, 7.2% miss)
- Pre-tax Profit: $3.09 billion (17.6% margin)
- EPS (GAAP): $3.53 vs analyst estimates of $3.53 (in line)
- Market Capitalization: $247 billion
Company Overview
Recognizable by its iconic green logo and the slogan "Don't leave home without it," American Express (NYSE: AXP) is a global payments company that issues credit and charge cards, processes merchant transactions, and offers travel and lifestyle benefits to consumers and businesses.
Revenue Growth
A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Any business can experience short-term success, but top-performing ones enjoy sustained growth for years. Thankfully, American Express’s 16.4% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was impressive. Its growth surpassed the average financials company and shows its offerings resonate with customers, a great starting point for our analysis.
We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within financials, a half-decade historical view may miss recent interest rate changes, market returns, and industry trends. American Express’s annualized revenue growth of 9.8% over the last two years is below its five-year trend, but we still think the results were respectable. 
Note: Quarters not shown were determined to be outliers, impacted by outsized investment gains/losses that are not indicative of the recurring fundamentals of the business.
This quarter, American Express’s revenue grew by 10.6% year on year to $17.57 billion but fell short of Wall Street’s estimates.
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Key Takeaways from American Express’s Q4 Results
We struggled to find many positives in these results. Revenue missed, and EPS was just in line. Overall, this was a weaker quarter. The stock traded down 2.6% to $349.20 immediately following the results.
The latest quarter from American Express’s wasn’t that good. One earnings report doesn’t define a company’s quality, though, so let’s explore whether the stock is a buy at the current price. What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
