American Express and eBay both held their Q1 2013 earnings calls on Wednesday evening, with the two payments giants posting gains that missed analyst estimates.
American Express had the better showing of the two companies, riding increased consumer spending to a net income boost of 2 percent for the quarter. As Reuters notes, the 7 percent cardmember spending increase represents the fourth straight quarter of single-digit growth after a previous nine quarters of double-digit growth.
The increase helped Amex beat earnings per share estimates, posting $1.28 billion for $1.15 per share, compared to the predicted $1.12 total. A year ago, Amex earned $1.26 billion for a boost of $1.07 per share.
That spending growth was still somewhat muted, though, led Amex to miss revenue estimates, coming in at just $7.88 billion opposed to an expected mark of $8.03 billion.
Commerce giant eBay was also a victim of slowed growth, most notably from its PayPal unit, which many consider to be the company’s backbone. After seeing revenue jumps of up to 32 percent a quarter last year, PayPal’s revenue rose just 18 percent to $1.55 billion.
Overall, eBay saw revenue growth of 14 percent: down from 29 percent a year ago and 21 percent for all of 2012, as The Wall Street Journal noted. EBay’s forecasted net income sits at between 46 and 48 cents for the second quarter, with between $3.8 and $3.9 billion in revenue. That mark missed analyst expectations of $3.95 billion in revenue.
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Amex stock traded down around 1 percent in after hours trading, while eBay’s stock trended down around 3 percent.
