Mastercard reports 17% year‑over‑year gain as Q3 2025 revenue hits $8.6B
Mastercard on Thursday reported that it recorded $8.6 billion in net revenue last quarter, up by 17% from the same quarter last year, according to the company’s earnings report.
The payments giant said the growth came from strong card spending across consumers and businesses, along with expanded services beyond payments.
Net income reached $3.9 billion, rising from $3.3 billion, while diluted earnings per share were $4.34, compared to $3.53 a year ago.
Fourteen analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected earnings of $4.31 per share, while eleven analysts expected revenue of $8.5 billion, meaning Mastercard beat two separate forecasts.
Mike Miebach, the CEO, said the quarter showed continued demand across the company’s network and newer service categories. “This quarter, these value-added services and solutions delivered net revenue growth of 25% year-over-year, or 22% on a currency-neutral basis,” Mike said.
He also pointed out Mastercard launched the Mastercard Commerce Media network, introduced new cyber threat intelligence tools for payments, and expanded agentic commerce capabilities, describing these as aimed at helping customers “unlock new buying centers.”
Mastercard sees growth in payment network and services
Mastercard reported that payment network net revenue increased 12%, or 10% on a currency-neutral basis, and it processed $2.7 trillion in gross dollar volume, which was 9% higher on a local currency basis than last year.
Cross-border volume increased 15%, reflecting ongoing travel and international spending patterns. Switched transactions increased 10%, showing higher overall transaction activity across the network.
Rebates and incentives offered to customers also increased. Mastercard said payment network rebates and incentives increased 16%, or 15% on a currency-neutral basis, with the company pointing to growth in key usage drivers along with renewed and new customer arrangements.
The company said value-added services and solutions saw 25% revenue growth, or 22% currency-neutral. The growth included 3 percentage points from acquisitions, while the remaining increase came from demand in security, digital authentication, consumer engagement, business insights, and pricing services.
Mike said these areas play a growing role in how Mastercard positions itself beyond card transactions alone.
Mastercard’s operating income for the quarter came in $5.1 billion, compared to $4.0 billion a year ago, meaning a 26% surge, or 23% currency-neutral. The operating margin was 58.8%, up from 54.3% in Q3 2024.
Expenses, taxes, adjusted performance, and card count
Total operating expenses increased 5% from last year. The company said this came mainly from higher general and administrative costs. These costs in the prior year included a restructuring charge, and the company said this year’s expenses were partly offset by lower litigation provisions.
Excluding special items, adjusted operating expenses increased 15%, or 14% currency-neutral, with 4 percentage points coming from acquisitions. The remaining increase reflected additional general and administrative expenses.
Other income (expense) for the quarter was favorable by $76 million compared to last year. The company pointed to net gains on equity investments this year, compared to net losses in the same period of 2024, partly balanced by increased interest expense.
Without the effect of those gains and losses, adjusted other income (expense) was unfavorable by $28 million due to higher interest expense.
The effective tax rate for Q3 2025 was 21.5%, compared to 15.6% in the same period of 2024. The adjusted effective tax rate was 21.4%, compared to 16.3% last year.
Mastercard said the higher rates in 2025 were mainly due to the 15% global minimum tax (Pillar 2 Rules) that took effect in Singapore and other jurisdictions this year, along with changes in the company’s geographic earnings mix.
The company noted that the global minimum tax largely offset the reduction to its tax rate that would have resulted from an incentive grant received from the Singapore Ministry of Finance.
The company closed the quarter with 3.6 billion Mastercard and Maestro-branded cards issued worldwide as of September 30, 2025.
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