For the first half of the 2023 financial year, BAT Malaysia said it heightened its investment towards the launch of its vapour products, resulting in a profit from operations of RM132 million compared with RM191 million in the same period last
year.
These results were achieved on the back of a revenue of RM1.07 billion for the first half of the year compared with RM1.16 billion achieved in the same period last year. For the six-month under review, the Group recorded an overall dip in volume due to the soft market in Q1FY2023, although the Group’s volume in Q2FY2023 trended upwards.
The Group’s Premium and Aspirational Premium brands recorded a drop in share of the market of 0.8% and 0.1% respectively to 33.0% and 6.7% compared with the same period last year. Consistent with the downtrading trend observed within the legal combustible market, the Group’s Value-for-Money (VFM) brands saw an increase of 0.5% share of the market to 11.6%.
Nedal Salem, Managing Director of BAT Malaysia, said, “Our financial results were within expectations given the tough economic climate. However, we expect this impact to be short-term as we continue progressing into a multi-category organisation, backed by our trajectory in the New Category segment.”
The tobacco black market continues to impact the industry, and we will continue working with the relevant authorities to bring down the incidence of black-market cigarettes which stubbornly hovers above 55%.
