Imperial says it is on track to meet market expectations
Bristol firm Imperial said in a market update it is confident it will meet full year expectations.
The tobacco company said strong tobacco pricing is supporting financial delivery while balancing share performance.
It is also seeing growth in next generation products as the company builds scale and launches new products.
First-half adjusted group operating profit is ahead of the Same period last year reflecting higher tobacco and NGP adjusted operating profit and growth at Logista.
The firm said it continues to make good progress implementing its five-year strategy to transform the business and remains confident it will deliver the full-year accelerated adjusted operating profit growth in line with previously stated medium-term guidance.
Tobacco and next generation product net revenue is expected to grow at a low single-digit rate, with group adjusted operating profit growing at a rate close to the middle of mid-single digit range.
A statement said: “This performance reflects our improved resilience to withstand geopolitical and macro-economic pressures as well as the benefit of our continued investment to strengthen performance and drive transformation.
“Constant currency tobacco and NGP net revenue growth has strengthened over the same period last year underpinned by strong combustibles pricing and growth in our NGP business. In combustibles, focused investment in our five priority markets continues to support resilient aggregate market share with gains in the US, Spain and Australia, broadly offsetting declines in Germany and the UK, as expected.
“These results are consistent with our medium-term objective to hold or grow aggregate share across these markets. At the same time, we have delivered strong pricing, more than offsetting wider industry volume pressures in certain markets.”
