American Express Global Business Travel benefitted from “record” retention rates and increased spending among its larger clients in 2024, while transactions by SMEs remained “muted”, the travel management company reported.
Total transactions from global multinational companies increased 8 per cent year-over-year in 2024, while transaction growth among small and midsized companies increased just 2 per cent, “reflecting tighter spending controls driven by higher prices and lower macro-economic growth,” Amex GBT CEO Paul Abbott said during an earnings call on Thursday (27 February).
“SME transaction growth has been muted but stable for several quarters,” Abbott said, but maintained that this customer segment “remains our biggest growth opportunity… [and] 25 per cent of our new SME wins in 2024 were previously unmanaged customers.”
Full-year total transaction value (TTV) for the TMC, the largest in Europe, increased 8 per cent to $30.5 billion, spurred by transaction growth as well as increases in average ticket prices and hotel rates, Abbott said. Transaction volumes increased 5 per cent year-on-year, while revenues increased 6 per cent to $2.42 billion.
Transaction growth was up 5 per cent in the Americas, with Abbott noting an uptick in growth rates following the US election. Growth in EMEA increased 2 per cent, while the TMC’s operations in APAC saw a 12 per cent increase in transactions. Amex GBT also reported a 97 per cent customer retention rate in 2024, including a “record” 99 per cent retention among GMN customers.
The TMC recorded new business worth a total of $2.8 billion in 2024, including $2.2 billion from new SME business. However, the total value of new business wins is down slightly on the 12-month trading figure reported in Q3 as “we saw some GMN prospects delay decisions into 2025,” Abbott explained.
This may very well be linked to the TMC’s proposed $570 million merger with CWT, which has suffered regulatory hurdles in recent months, namely with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and the US Department of Justice. Both authorities have cited concerns over limited competition for larger GMN clients, while Amex GBT has argued the authorities do not have an accurate understanding of the GMN market.
Perhaps because this, Abbott, during the earnings call, stated: “We generally use expected annual TTV to divide customers into these [GMN and SME] categories, although this measure can vary by company and by customer need and we do not have products or services that are offered solely to one size customer.”
While the UK’s CMA has since changed its stance on the merger and “provisionally” approved the deal earlier this month, on the call Abbott reiterated the TMC’s belief that the DOJ’s lawsuit is “fundamentally flawed” and “we expect to prove that in court if required”.
While there is no existing precedent regarding the global regulatory “dynamics” of the GBT-CWT deal, Eric Bock, Amex GBT’s chief legal officer and global head of M&A, said: "We’ll continue to have dialogue with the DOJ before and during this whole process… and we’re confident we’re on the right side of this argument”.
Bock said the TMC’s court case against the DOJ is set for 8 September, and that he now expects the merger to close in Q4 2025.