New Category products and strategic investments propel BAT towards 2024 growth targets

British American Tobacco (BAT) has announced its trading update for the first half of 2024, confirming that the company is on track to meet its full-year guidance, with H1 performance in line with company expectations.

BAT said its strategic discipline and focused investments are driving positive momentum, setting the stage for accelerated growth in the second half of the year.

“Our year-to-date performance is in line with our expectations, and we are on track to deliver our guidance of low-single digit revenue and adjusted profit from operations growth on an organic, constant currency basis in 2024,” Tadeu Marroco, chief executive, said.

The company expects the phasing of new launches in New Categories, and H1 investment in the US commercial actions and related wholesaler inventory movements to benefit it in the second half.

This month, BAT will begin the rollout of its new single-use vapour product, Vuse Go 2.0, featuring enhanced taste and design, and a removable battery, with substantial further rollouts planned through the remainder of 2024.

Its heated tobacco product glo has started to deliver sequential category volume share improvement since January in key markets, with year-to-date volume share down 20 bps to 16.8 per cent (versus down 110 bps in 2023), driven by encouraging early consumer response to the new innovations glo Hyper Pro and enhanced c consumables.

Nicotine pouch brand Velo’s volume share of Total Oral in key markets is up 80 bps at 10.3 per cent, driven by strong Modern Oral category growth.

“Our focus on Quality Growth is starting to drive accelerating returns on more targeted investments across all three New Categories, particularly Heating Products and Modern Oral. As a result, we expect to deliver further improvement in New Category profitability for both the first half and full year,” Marroco said.