Imperial Brands has released its full-year results for the year ended Sept. 30, 2024.
The company’s net revenue was up 4.6 percent from tobacco and next-generation products. It saw aggregate market share gains in its five priority markets with four out of five markets in share growth.
Next-generation product net revenue was up 26 percent with growth from all three regions and improved gross margins. Growth at Logista reflected strong tobacco pricing and benefits of prior-year acquisitions.
Adjusted earnings per share were up 10.9 percent, driven by profit growth and share count reduction. Reported earnings per share were up 19.1 percent.
The company saw a free cash flow of £2.4 billion.
Capital returns of approximately £2.8 billion are underway for full-year 2025 with £1.25 billion buyback and full-year 2024 dividend up 4.5 percent.
“As we enter the final year of our current strategy, the investment we have made in consumer capabilities, cultural transformation and agile ways of working has supported another year of accelerated financial delivery and growing capital returns,” said Stefan Bomhard, CEO. “These results demonstrate how we are fulfilling our role as an effective challenger for the industry, able to deliver consistently against operational and financial expectations.
“In tobacco, investment in our brands and sales force initiatives have delivered aggregate market share gains across our five priority markets while delivering strong pricing. This was supported by an encouraging stabilization in German market share for the first time under our strategy.
“In next-generation products (NGP), we continue to build scale across our footprint with net revenues up 26.4 percent at constant currency driven by growth from all three regions and market share growth in all three categories. Our partnership approach to product innovation has enabled us to launch new products across all three categories during the year. This included our successful entry to the fast-growing modern oral category in the U.S. with our brand Zone.
“Our operational delivery coupled with consistently strong cash flow generation has supported enhanced shareholder returns with increases to both our ordinary dividend and share buyback. We are on track to deliver five-year capital returns of c. £10 billion, representing 67 percent of our market capitalization in January 2021 when we launched our strategy. We look forward to presenting the next phase of our strategy at a Capital Markets Day on 26 March 2025.”