AXA revenues grow by 3% in 2013 Q1

Axa total revenues rose by 3% to €28.9 billion in the first quarter of 2013, driven by growth in all business lines.

The firm’s life and savings revenues increased by 4%.

Its property and casualty revenue grew by 2% to €10.2 billion and was mainly fuelled by an average 2.7% increase in tariffs across all business lines.

The property and casualty line also benefited from strong increases in high growth markets and resumed growth in direct business. High growth markets revenues rose by 14% with revenues increasing mainly in Turkey, the Gulf region, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Direct revenues were up 10%, mainly driven by resumed growth in UK and France.

In addition, mature markets revenues increased 1%, largely due to tariff rises. Increases were notably in France, Switzerland and UK & Ireland.

AXA deputy chief executive officer Denis Duverne said: “2013 kicked off to a good start with dynamic top-line performance across all business lines and agile redeployment of capital towards high growth markets and direct. In life and savings we further shifted our business mix towards higher margin products, while pricing trends and underwriting discipline continued in property and casualty.”

He added: “In 1Q13 we continued to actively manage our capital allocation to further accelerate AXA’s development in high growth markets by creating value from disposals in mature markets. We announced the sale of our closed-block life business in the US, the sale of a majority stake in AXA Private Equity, and the acquisition of Tian Ping which will reaffirm AXA as the largest international P&C insurer in Asia ex-Japan and will position us as the largest foreign P&C insurer in China.”