Revenues down

Altria net revenues decreased 7.9 percent to $5.6 billion, primarily due to lower net revenues in the smokeable products segment.

Revenues net of excise taxes decreased 6 percent to $4.4 billion.

Cigarette shipment volumes declined 14.3 percent to 23.59 billion sticks—worse than analysts had feared. Altria attributed the decline to trade inventory movements, the overall industry’s rate of decline, retail share losses and one fewer shipping day during the reporting period.

The company reaffirmed its guidance for 2019 full-year earnings per share (EPS).

“After taking steps to position Altria for long-term success at the end of 2018, we entered 2019 with an evolved business platform that includes our strong core tobacco businesses and new strategic investments with tremendous potential for growth,” said Howard Willard, Altria’s chairman and CEO.

“We believe we’ve made significant progress in the first quarter on key initiatives to realize the potential of our evolved business platform.

“As expected, Altria’s first quarter adjusted diluted EPS declined in the mid-single digit range as we incurred higher interest expense as a result of our recently issued debt, without the full benefit of savings from our cost reduction program, which began to ramp up at the end of the quarter. We continue to expect full-year adjusted diluted EPS growth of 4 percent to 7 percent.”