British American Tobacco (BAT) reported a rise in annual profit and strong momentum in its non-combustible products including vaping.

Revenue for the full year was GBP 25.78 billion (USD 35.88 billion), on a constant-currency adjusted basis, revenue was up 3.3%.
New categories revenue rose by 15% overall. In 2020, the company increased the number of consumers of its non-combustible products by 3 million to 13.5 million, doubling the rate of consumer adoption in the second half of 2020.

Chief Executive Jack Bowles said: “As the largest, and only truly global company in our industry, we take seriously our role to transform ourselves and demonstrate thought leadership. We have a clear purpose to reduce the harm footprint of our business. We are uniquely positioned to encourage the switch to reduced risk products.
We operate worldwide, including the US, which represents 40% of the global industry’s value. Our well-embedded consumer-centric, multi-category strategy is activated on a global scale, leveraging our insights on consumer satisfaction, innovation needs and taste preference. We are building the brands of the future – strong, global brands, specifically positioned in each target consumer segment. Our investment behind New Categories has increased by a further GBP 426 million (USD 529.9 million) compared to 2019, enabled by a 5th consecutive year of value share growth in combustibles. Enabled by Project Quantum, we continued to simplify the company and drive efficiencies, delivering GBP 660 million (USD 918.6 million) of cost savings (being well on track to deliver our ambitious GBP 1 billion (USD 1.39 billion) of savings by 2022), further supporting new capabilities investment.”
For 2021, BAT added it expects to see constant currency revenue growth of 3-5% and continued progress towards its New Categories revenue target of GBP 5 billion (USD 6.96 billion) in 2025.