British American Tobacco Industries, p.l.c. (BTI) Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to welcome you to our 2024 Interim Results Presentation. With me this morning is Soraya Bencik, our new CFO, and Victoria Buxton, Group Head of Investors Relations. I will begin with our transformation highlights and the progress we have made against our key areas of focus over the last 12 months. Soraya will then take you through our financial performance in more detail. I will then return to talk more about our performance outlook before we move to the Q&A session. With that, I'd like to draw your attention to the disclaimers on slides two and three. So let's begin by looking at the way forward. Our first half performance is in line with expectations, and we are on track to deliver our full year guidance. In the first half of this year, we have continued to transform our business. We added 1.4 million smokeless consumers, reaching 26.4 million. Smokeless now accounts for 18% of group revenue, up 1.4 percentage points versus full year 23. Our focus on quality growth, balancing top and bottom line delivery, has driven a £165 million increase in new category contribution and close to a 10 percentage point increase in our category contribution margin. Building on this momentum, we expect another good increase in new category contribution for the full year. We are committed to rewarding shareholders with strong cash returns, and I'm pleased with our progress in enhancing financial flexibility, enabling the initiation of a sustainable share buyback. This year is a key moment in our transformation journey, as we sharpen our execution, enabling us to navigate near-term market challenges and drive our sustainable transformation. Turning to the drivers of 2024 delivery. As was previously guided, 2024 is an investment year for BAT. In the...