Imperial Brands is on track to meet its previous full-year guidance, the company announced in a trading update. In the year-ago period, including Russia, on a constant currency basis, the company expects tobacco and NGP net revenue growth to be in the low single digits and group adjusted operating profit growth to accelerate to the low single digit range. end. (Imperial Brands transferred its Russian operations to local investors in April 2022.)
At current rates, the company expects foreign exchange rates to provide an approximately 2% boost to its full-year net revenue and adjusted operating profit.
The company wrote in its latest report: "Concentrated investment in our priority combustible markets is expected to deliver further modest full-year total share gains across our top five markets. This follows several consecutive years of market share decline. Completed three consecutive years of improvement.”
Imperial Brands expects market share gains in the US, Spain and Australia to offset declines in Germany and the UK. Imperial Brands stated: "This positive total share price performance has been achieved while delivering strong pricing across all five markets, reflecting equity enhancements across our brands and increased resilience following our recent targeted investments."
"As expected, our tobacco net revenue growth improved in the second half on a constant currency basis as continued strong prices helped offset relatively high volume declines relative to historical averages."
"Tobacco net revenue growth remained strong in Europe and Asia Pacific, more than offsetting declines in the U.S. Our U.S. cigarette business performed well and cigarette net revenue continued to grow, although as expected, this was offset by a decline in mass market cigar net revenue offset."
Imperial Brands' full-year net gross profit and NGP revenue growth accelerated in the second half of this year, driven by strong growth in Europe.
In a trading update, Imperial also announced it would buy back 1.1 billion pounds ($1.36 billion) of shares in fiscal 2024, a 10% increase from the 1 billion pounds it bought back in fiscal 2023.
Imperial Brands will announce its full-year results on November 14.
