UPDATE 2-American Express Q1 earnings more than double

* Q1 profit $873 mln vs $361 mln a year earlier

* EPS of 73 cts vs Street expectations for 64 cts

* Revenues rise 11 percent

* American Express shares up 1.8 pct afterhours (Adds analyst expectations, detail on results, background on American Express, byline)

By Maria Aspan

NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - American Express Co (AXP.N) said net income more than doubled in the first quarter, as the credit card company continued to lead its competitors out of the slump of the last two years.

The credit card lender and payment network reported higher-than-expected shareholder net income of $873 million, or 73 cents a share, up from $361 million, or 31 cents per share, in the same quarter a year earlier.

Revenues, net of interest expense, increased 11 percent to $6.6 billion from a year earlier.

Analysts had expected the company to report a profit of 64 cents per share, according to estimates from Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company attributed its performance to improved credit quality and a rebound in consumer spending. American Express customers spent 16 percent more on their cards this year than they did a year earlier.

The company halved its provisions for U.S. losses from a year earlier, to $687 million. Its U.S. net charge-off rate fell to 7.2 percent in a significant recovery from a year earlier.

Those rates are still relatively high compared to the loss rates of a few years ago. But the company now has the lowest charge-off and delinquency rates of the major credit card lenders, including JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N).

American Express was one of the first big credit card lenders to start suffering big credit losses in 2008, but it has also been the first to start recovering from the recession. It has relatively wealthy and credit-worthy customers, which have been some of the first to resume spending as the economy improves and unemployment numbers stabilize.

Shares of American Express rose 1.8 percent to $47.61 in afterhours trade from their $46.77 close on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Maria Aspan; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)