Imperial’s Four Key Brands Account for 33% of Sales

Imperial Tobacco’s £1.2bn writing off of amounts of its Spanish business is a surprise. The manufacturer is the giant operator in the recession-hit country, where a half of the personnel is unemployed.
Volumes are declining and companies as Imperial have been raising prices in order to increase profitability. It has also been paying attention on its key brands such as Gauloises, Davidoff and West. These are higher margin products as well as Imperial’s rolling tobacco as Drum and Golden Virginia brands, which have been declining to. Whole sales of these fine cut tobaccos increased by 13%, with premium cigar sales up 10%.

The manufacturer has also been implementing innovation, as for instance its “Glide Tec” packages, which demonstrated positive results and great demand among many smokers. These packages have a little “window” on the front of the package which permits the smoker to slide up the inner package with their thumb, thus opening the pack with only one hand. In the year to September, net profit from tobacco increased 5% at constant currencies, with volumes of cigarettes sold dropped 2.5%. After the write-down, pre-tax revenues declined to £1.1bn from 2.2bn.

Female Smoking

Latest reports show female smokers make up nearly 20 percent of the world’s tobacco smokers, and that figure is likely to grow due to successful ad campaigns targeting women, with consumption growing fastest among younger women and girls.
As a result, the rate of deaths among this population is also likely to grow – adding to the 5 million who now die each year worldwide from tobacco use and passive smoking. The WHO says the number could reach 8 million deaths by 2030.
To combat the millions the tobacco industry spends each year on ads, health advocates are now trying to step up public awareness campaigns along with anti-smoking restrictions, taxes and bans, especially in low income, developing nations with few controls.

 What’s Behind the Surprise Global Spike in Female Smoking?