American Express - Research Paper Example

In business segment, American Express offers options to small business, merchants, and corporations, providing them powerful applications to run small business, card programs and solutions to corporations, and a host of other various merchant products such as merchant accounts and marketing etc. Broadly speaking, customer segment of American Express can be divided into 5 categories, which include U.S. Card Services, International Card Services, Global Network and Merchant Services, Global Commercial, and Corporate & Other services.

The customer base of American Express is worldwide; it serves the market wherever it is providing its services through its workforce strength of 58,300 employees (American Express, 2011). American Express is a multi-product firm competing in the financial industry segment with annual revenue of $24.5 billion. Its Cards-in-force are 87.9million in number, and total assets $124 billion. The annual purchase volume of American Express Cards is $620 billion (American Express, 2011). Stock market performance in the NYSE of the American Express for the first-quarter has been declared to the tune of $1.

2 billion in net revenue, which is an increase of 33% from 885 million a year back, as reported on 20 April 2011. Diluted income per share was $0.97, recording an increase of 33 percent from $0.73% one year back. The company has reported an increase of 7 percent in the consolidated total income net of interest expense, going up to $7.0 billion from previous year’s $6.6 billion. The company has been able to realize higher income because of increased spending by card members and increased travel commissions and fees, which has offset to some extent reduced interest income because of reduced pay off on loan portfolio (PHX, 2011).

Quarters Ended Percentage March 31, Inc/Dec. 2011 2010 ______________________________________________________________________________ Total Revenues Net of Interest Expense $ 7,031 $ 6,560 7 % Net Income $ 1,177 $ 885 33 % Earnings Per Common Share – Diluted: Net Income Attributed Shareholders $ 0.97 $ 0.73 33 % Average Diluted Shares Outstanding 1,198 1,191 1 % Return on Average Equity 27.9 % 18.0 % ______________________________________________________________________________ American Express has gained huge success in bringing regular improvement in the credit quality by reducing its consolidated provisions for losses from $943 million in 2010 to $97 million in 2011.

Consolidated expenses also recorded an increase of 19%, going up from previous year’s $4.4 billion to $5.2 billion, which has been attributed towards huge investment in business building and costs incurred on higher rewards. The company recorded an increase in return on average equity (ROE) by 27.9 percent from the previous year’s 18.0 percent (New Release, American Express, 2011). Incidentally, the Board of Directors of American Express Company declared on 23 May 2011 a regular quarterly dividend of $0.

18 per common share, payable on August 10, 2011 to shareholders of record on July 1, 2011 (American Express, 2011). Major competitors of American Express are Capital One Financial Corporation, Visa Inc., Discover Financial Services, and MasterCard Incorporated, as given below from the stock performance of all of the companies. The American Express Company is leading in TTM sale to the extent of $28,290m while Capital One Fina