Mastercard's better-than-expected earnings showed signs of a healthy consumer and a boost from China's reopening.

The company reported $2.65 in earnings per share for the fourth quarter, ahead of the consensus estimate of $2.57. Net revenue rose to $5.8 billion, an increase of 17% on a currency-neutral basis.

Mastercard (ticker: MA), which has a stronger presence in Asia than rival Visa (V), was buoyed by increased travel as China started to open up after three years of Covid-19 lockdowns. Still, the company said the outlook is unclear after the Federal Reserve's most aggressive campaign of interest-rate increases in a generation.

"While macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty persists, consumer spending has been remarkably resilient," said Michael Miebach, Mastercard CEO in a statement. "We are well prepared to adjust our investment profile quickly if needed."

On a call with analysts, management noted that in the first few weeks of January, cross-border travel surpassed 2019 levels and the company remained confident that healthy growth would continue throughout the year, especially with the recent reopening of the Asia Pacific region.

"From a cross-border standpoint, and particularly cross-border travel standpoint, the vast majority of the regions have now reached that state where they are kind of growing and growing at a healthy pace, but they're not growing at an accelerating pace," Sachin Mehra, chief financial officer at Mastercard, said.

Despite the beat, Mastercard shares slid more than 1% in morning trading. Analysts were generally optimistic on the company's prospects longer term, especially in light of the company's comments about spending trends Mastercard has seen so far this year.

"Encouragingly, January-to-date trends were stable to somewhat ahead of 4Q, with management calling out resilient consumer," Tien-tsin Huang, an analyst at J.P. Morgan Chase, wrote Thursday.

Mastercard's results bode well for rival Visa, which posts earnings after the close Thursday.

"Overall, we see results as constructive and see MA (and Visa) as among the select companies that have the potential beat/raise throughout 2023, which emphasizes their resilience," Darrin Peller, an analyst at Wolfe Research wrote Thursday.