American Express Company vs General Motors Company: Strategic Comparison

This in-depth comparison examines American Express Company and General Motors Company across revenue, market value, business model, competitive positioning, and long-term growth strategy. Whether you are researching American Express Company on its own, evaluating General Motors Company, or weighing the two companies side by side, the breakdown below highlights where each company leads and where the gap between American Express Company and General Motors Company is widest.

On the headline numbers, American Express Company reports annual revenue of $72.2B against $185.0B for General Motors Company, while their respective market capitalizations stand at $205.8B and $74.9B. Both American Express Company and General Motors Company are headquartered in United States, so they compete in a shared home market and regulatory environment.

American Express Company: American Express is a payments company that sells access to its own card members. It does not rent its network to thousands of issuing banks the way Visa and Mastercard do; it issues the cards, signs the merchants and keeps the discount fee. In FY2025 it carried $1,897.0 billion of network volumes, had 152.8 million cards in force worldwide including 86.6 million it issues itself, and reported $72.2 billion in total revenues net of interest expense. The premium lineup runs from the Green Card up through the Gold Card at $325 a year, the Platinum Card at $895 after its September 2025 refresh, and the invitation-only Centurion Card, whose fee the company does not publish.

General Motors Company: General Motors (NYSE: GM) is the largest U.S. automaker by sales, with 2.85 million U.S. deliveries and about a 17% market share in 2025. Based in Detroit, it sells vehicles under Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick, and runs GM Financial for auto loans and leases. Its identity today is tied to profitable pickups such as the Silverado and Sierra and large SUVs such as the Escalade, which fund a slower-than-planned move into EVs, software, and driver assistance.

American Express Company and General Motors Company pursue distinct approaches to generating revenue, and understanding how each company operates is the foundation of any fair comparison between American Express Company and General Motors Company.

American Express Company business model: American Express runs a closed-loop payments business: it issues the card, owns the network, underwrites the credit and contracts with the merchant. Visa and Mastercard only move the transaction between an issuing bank and an acquiring bank, so they never see both sides of a purchase. Because Amex holds every side of the relationship, it keeps the whole merchant discount fee rather than sharing it, and in FY2025 discount revenue equalled 2.24 percent of the $1,669.8 billion its card members billed. The trade-off is price: merchants pay more to accept Amex than to accept an open-loop card, so the company has to justify the rate with card members who spend more. Average spending per proprietary basic card member was $25,453 in 2025. Amex funds that proposition with annual fees, which reached $10.0 billion in net card fees in FY2025 at an average of $117 per proprietary card, and spends the money back on Membership Rewards, the Centurion Lounge network, Resy and Tock dining access and service. Since converting to a bank holding company in 2008 it has also lent against card balances through American Express National Bank, producing $17.4 billion of net interest income in FY2025.

General Motors Company business model: GM makes money mainly by building and wholesaling vehicles to its dealer network, then earning a second layer of profit through GM Financial, its captive lender. GM North America (GMNA) is the profit engine: full-size pickups such as the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra and large SUVs such as the Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon, and Cadillac Escalade carry far higher margins than small cars or current EVs. GM International covers markets such as South America, South Korea, and the Middle East, while China is run through joint ventures (notably SAIC-GM) whose results show up as equity income rather than consolidated revenue. GM Financial earns interest and lease income from retail loans, leases, and dealer floorplan lines that also help move GM inventory. A smaller but growing layer of recurring revenue comes from software and services such as OnStar and the Super Cruise hands-free driving system. GM sold Opel/Vauxhall to PSA in 2017 and stopped selling vehicles in India the same year, so its footprint is now concentrated on North America.

The durability of a company's moat often decides long-term winners. Here is how the competitive advantages of American Express Company stack up against those of General Motors Company.

American Express Company competitive advantage: American Express competes on the spending power of its card members rather than on price or ubiquity. Average spending per proprietary basic card member was $25,453 in 2025, which is the argument it makes to merchants who pay a higher discount rate, an average of 2.24 percent of billed business. Owning both sides of the transaction also gives it card member and merchant data that open-loop networks do not hold, which feeds underwriting and targeted offers. Credit outcomes reflect the customer mix: a 2.0 percent net write-off rate on consumer and small business loans and receivables in 2025, with 1.3 percent of balances 30 or more days past due.

General Motors Company competitive advantage: GM's clearest advantage is scale in U.S. full-size pickups and SUVs: it has led the full-size pickup segment for six straight years, selling about 940,000 in 2025. That franchise, a national Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac dealer network, and GM Financial's captive lending give it cash flow and pricing power that newer EV-only rivals do not have. Super Cruise and OnStar give it a software and services base that competitors are still building.

Future prospects matter as much as current results. The growth strategies below explain how American Express Company and General Motors Company each plan to expand from here.

American Express Company growth strategy: Amex's growth strategy is aggressively focused on capturing the next generation of wealthy spenders: Millennials and Gen Z. They have successfully revamped their well-known Platinum and Gold cards with perks tailored specifically for younger demographics (like Uber credits and dining rewards), resulting in rapid growth among younger cohorts. Additionally, they are heavily targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), aggressively expanding their corporate card and B2B payment processing services to capture large commercial spending volumes.

General Motors Company growth strategy: GM's growth strategy has shifted from an all-EV push to flexibility. It still sells EVs on its Ultium-based platforms, such as the Chevrolet Equinox EV and Cadillac Lyriq, but after 2025 it cut EV capacity, kept investing in gas trucks and SUVs, and plans lower-cost lithium manganese-rich (LMR) cells with LG Energy Solution. In December 2024 GM stopped funding the Cruise robotaxi business and folded that work into its own engineering team. Growth now rests on software and services (OnStar, Super Cruise, and a planned eyes-off driving system), plus disciplined pricing and inventory.

A closer look at the financial trajectory of American Express Company and General Motors Company rounds out the comparison.

American Express Company: American Express reported $72.2 billion in total revenues net of interest expense for FY2025, up 10 percent, and $10.8 billion of net income, or $15.38 per diluted share. The mix is less fee-only than its premium image suggests: discount revenue on merchant transactions was $37.4 billion, net interest income on card member loans was $17.4 billion, net card fees were $10.0 billion and service fees and other revenue were $7.5 billion. Growth in 2025 came disproportionately from the two smaller lines, with net card fees up 18 percent and net interest income up 12 percent against 6 percent growth in discount revenue. Return on average equity was 33.9 percent, the net write-off rate on consumer and small business loans and receivables was 2.0 percent, and the company declared $3.28 per share in dividends while average diluted shares fell from 713 million to 696 million.

General Motors Company: GM's finances are funded by internal-combustion trucks and SUVs. In 2025 it generated $185.0 billion of revenue, $12.7 billion of EBIT-adjusted, and $10.6 billion of adjusted automotive free cash flow, but EV write-downs cut net income attributable to stockholders 55% to $2.7 billion. Q1 2026 revenue was $43.6 billion with $2.6 billion of net income; Q2 2026 revenue was $48.0 billion with $1.3 billion of net income, $3.9 billion of EBIT-adjusted, and North America margins back inside GM's 8-10% target. GM returns large amounts of cash to shareholders and approved a new $6.0 billion buyback alongside a 20% higher quarterly dividend in January 2026.