American Express reported better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday as it saw an increase in customer acquisition and spending.
The credit card company posted earnings per share of $1.45 on $8.09 billion in revenue. Adjusting for currency, revenue benefited from strong net interest income, customer spending and net card fees.
Analysts had expected American Express to report earnings of $1.35 a share on about $8 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Shares of AmEx were up as much as 4 percent in after-hours trading.
American Express also reported $5.5 billion in consolidated expenses for the quarter, up more than 5 percent from $5.2 billion last year. The company saw an increase of $118 million in marketing spending to fund growth initiatives.
"We added 3 million new proprietary cards this quarter, with almost two-thirds of the consumer acquisitions coming through digital channels. Our underlying loan portfolio grew 11 percent and credit metrics remained excellent," Kenneth Chenault, chairman and CEO of American Express, said in a statement.
The company also reaffirmed its full-year guidance of $5.40 to $5.70 per share.
American Express has seen some issues with maintaining its partnerships. Earlier this year, Fidelity Investments announced it would drop the company as a credit-card partner in favor of U.S. Bancorp and Visa.
American Express also lost its Costco contract, which the company has said would negatively impact its profits for two years. The credit-card issuer said in February that it expects to complete the sale of the deal to Citigroup by June. American Express expects to gain about $1 billion after the close of the deal.
Chris Donat, managing director at Sandler O'Neill, told CNBC's "Closing Bell" that although AmEx posted good numbers, he's more worried about the future impact of the partnerships it's lost.
"They sure have a long way to go in terms of replacing the Costco business that's going to go off their books in the second quarter," he said.
However, Donat remains optimistic on the credit card company.
"I think it should trade at a higher multiple than it is now," he said. "Right now it's around 12 times forward earnings. ... This is a great franchise. It's a trusted brand. It's well positioned for how the payments world evolves in a lot of ways."
— Reuters and CNBC's Denise Garcia contributed to this report.