Mastercard Mastercard (MA) reported second-quarter results on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations, and the message from management was clear: diversification is the name of the game.
Adjusted earnings came in at $5.04 per diluted share, topping the analyst consensus of $4.77. Revenue rose 14% year over year to $9.277 billion, ahead of the Street estimate of $9.068 billion. On a GAAP basis, net income increased 19% to $4.39 billion, and diluted EPS rose 22% to $4.97. Operating income climbed 17% to $5.59 billion, and operating margin expanded to 60.2% from 58.7% a year earlier.
CEO Michael Miebach said the quarter reflected Mastercard's ability to benefit from expanding digital commerce and new payment capabilities. “We delivered above expectations with net revenue growth at 14% year-over-year, or 12% on a currency-neutral basis in the second quarter,” Miebach said. He added that new partnerships and the company’s Agentic Payment capability are helping shape the future of commerce.
According to Bloomberg, CFO Sachin Mehra told analysts on the conference call that the results demonstrate the resilience of Mastercard’s diversified business model and disciplined execution across its payment network and value-added services and solutions, despite an uncertain geopolitical and economic environment.
Payment Volumes Keep Growing
Gross dollar volume increased 8% on a local-currency basis to $2.881 trillion, while purchase volume rose 10%. Cross-border volume increased 12%, and switched transactions grew 9% from a year earlier. Mastercard ended the quarter with approximately 3.7 billion Mastercard- and Maestro-branded cards issued worldwide.
Payment network revenue increased 10%, but the real star was value-added services and solutions revenue, which rose 20%, reflecting continued demand for security, digital authentication, consumer engagement and business insights offerings.
Mastercard’s results followed recent quarterly reports from Visa (V) and American Express (AXP). Earlier this week, Visa reported third-quarter revenue of $11.63 billion, up 14% from a year earlier and slightly ahead of the Street estimate of $11.39 billion, supported by resilient consumer and business spending. Last week, American Express reported second-quarter revenue of $19.64 billion, up 10% year over year but just below analysts’ estimate of $19.69 billion, as higher Card Member spending helped drive growth.
Share Repurchases Continue
During the quarter, Mastercard repurchased 9.8 million shares for $4.9 billion and paid $771 million in dividends. Through July 27, the company bought an additional 1.3 million shares for about $700 million, leaving $7.8 billion available under its existing share repurchase authorization. Mastercard ended the quarter with $11.29 billion in cash and cash equivalents, up from $10.57 billion at the end of 2025.
Outlook
The company also updated its fiscal 2026 outlook, projecting GAAP net revenue growth in the low teens and operating expense growth at the high end of the high single digits. On a non-GAAP, currency-neutral basis excluding inorganic activity, Mastercard continues to expect revenue growth at the high end of the low double digits and operating expense growth in the low double digits.
Price Action
Mastercard shares were trading up 3.04% at $580.46 at the time of publication on Thursday.
