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Mastercard Incorporated MA reported fourth-quarter 2025 adjusted earnings of $4.76 per share, which outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 13.3%. The bottom line improved 25% year over year.
Net revenues advanced 18% year over year to $8.8 billion. The top line beat the consensus mark by 0.8%.
The quarterly results were aided by growing cross-border volumes, an increase in switched transactions and solid growth in value-added services revenues. However, the upside was partly offset by elevated operating expenses due to acquisitions and administrative costs.
Mastercard Incorporated price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Mastercard Incorporated Quote
Gross dollar volume or GDV (representing the aggregated dollar amount of purchases made and cash disbursements obtained from Mastercard-branded cards) rose 7% on a local-currency basis to $2.82 trillion. The metric marginally fell short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.84 trillion.
Cross-border volumes (a key measure that tracks spending on cards beyond the issuing country) grew 14% on a local currency basis in the quarter under review. Switched transactions, which indicate the number of times a company’s products have been used to facilitate transactions, improved 10% year over year to 46.5 billion. The metric beat the consensus mark of 46.2 billion.
Value-added services and solutions’ net revenues totaled $3.9 billion, which advanced 26% year over year and surpassed our model estimate of $3.7 billion. The year-over-year growth was aided by buyouts and the strong performance of security and digital authentication solutions, as well as customer acquisition and engagement services.
Payment network rebates and incentives increased 20% year over year as a result of new and renewed deals. Mastercard’s clients issued 3.7 billion Mastercard and Maestro-branded cards as of Dec. 31, 2025.
Adjusted operating expenses escalated 14% year over year to $3.7 billion in the fourth quarter due to acquisitions and higher general and administrative expenses.
Adjusted operating income of $5.1 billion climbed 21% year over year and beat our model estimate of $4.9 billion. The adjusted operating margin improved 140 basis points (bps) year over year to 57.7%.
Mastercard exited the fourth quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $10.6 billion, which improved 25.2% from the 2024-end level. Total assets of $54.2 billion increased 12.6% from the figure at 2024-end.
Long-term debt amounted to $18.3 billion, up 4.4% from the figure as of Dec. 31, 2024. Short term debt totaled $749 million.
Total equity of $7.7 billion rose 18.9% from the 2024-end level.
Mastercard generated net cash from operations of $17.6 billion in 2025, which grew 19.4% from the 2024 figure.
Mastercard bought back 6.4 million shares for $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter. Over the period between Jan. 1 and Jan. 26, it bought back another 1.3 million shares for $715 million, thereby leaving a buyback capacity of $16.7 billion.
MA paid out dividends worth $684 million during the quarter under review.
Net revenues of $32.8 billion improved 16% from the 2024 figure. Similarly, adjusted EPS rose 17% year over year to $17.01 in 2025. Adjusted operating margin of 59.2% improved 80 bps year over year.
Management projects net revenues to register low teens growth on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter of 2026, while adjusted operating expenses are anticipated to record low double-digit growth.
Management estimates net revenues to witness high-end of low double-digit growth in 2026 from the 2025 figure. Adjusted operating expenses are likely to witness low double-digit growth from the year-ago figure.
Mastercard currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Here are three other companies from the Business Services space that are likely to report their respective quarterly earnings soon.
RB Global, Inc. RBA has an Earnings ESP of +1.52% and a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RBA’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings is 99 cents per share, which indicates a 4.2% rise from the prior-year quarter. RB Global’s earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 12.07%.
Barrett Business Services, Inc. BBSI has an Earnings ESP of +4.28% and a Zacks Rank of 3 at present. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BBSI’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings is 64 cents per share, which indicates a 1.6% rise from the prior-year quarter
Barrett Business Services’ earnings beat estimates in two of the trailing four quarters, matched the mark once and missed the same in the remaining one occasion, the average surprise being 18.61%.
The Western Union Company WU has an Earnings ESP of +1.51% and a Zacks Rank of 3 at present.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WU’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings is 43 cents per share, which indicates a 7.5% rise from the prior-year quarter. Western Union’s earnings beat estimates in two of the trailing four quarters and missed the mark twice, the average surprise being 0.62%.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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