Revenues up at Imperial Tobacco

REGULAR INCREASES in the price of cigarettes have driven up first-half revenues at Imperial Tobacco, despite “double dip” recessions in Britain and Spain dragging down volumes.

The maker of the Davidoff, West and Gauloises brands, which is fighting higher taxes and new anti-smoking regulations, such as Australia’s plain packaging laws, yesterday reported a 2 per cent increase in interim revenues to £13.9 billion.

The rise came in spite of consumers in recession-hit economies cutting back on their habit, pushing down volumes of cigarettes and loose-cut tobacco – known as “stick equivalents” – 4.1 per cent to 159.1 billion in the six-month period.

Imperial said its Spanish division – its biggest market by revenue after Germany and the UK – was improving following last year’s profit warning prompted by a price war with rivals British American Tobacco and Philip Morris.

In the six months to March 31st, pretax profit increased from £943 million to £1.1 billion. Diluted earnings per share fell from 91p to 82.3p. – (Copyright Financial Times Limited 2012)