From: Brisbane Times
Eli Greenblat
The bosses of the world’s second biggest tobacco company, British American Tobacco, have boasted to investors that the introduction of plain packaging in Australia last year hadn’t stopped smokers reaching for a cigarette with the multinational’s profits in Australia singled out as among the strongest in the Asia Pacific.
Indeed, latest financial reports from the tobacco giant lists Australian smokers leading Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh for driving large profit gains for the company.
Nicandro Durante, the chief executive of British American Tobacco, has told analysts during an earnings briefing for the £60 billion ($112.3 billion) tobacco giant that the only impact on his business in Australia in the wake of plain packaging has been a uptick in activity by criminals and smugglers with a rapid rise in the sale of illicit or counterfeit cigarettes.
For British American Tobacco, the world’s second biggest tobacco company with annual sales of more than £15 billion a year through brands such as Dunhill, Kent, Dunhill, Winfield and Benson & Hedges, Australia has been a boon market despite plain packaging, introduced by the Federal government in December 2012, promising to dent smoking rates by robbing it and competitors of their brand imagery.
”Australia delivered very good growth in profits, driven by pricing, cost savings and growing share in the premium segment,” British American Tobacco finance director John Stevens told analysts during an earnings update last week.
”We’ve seen no impact of plain packaging on the business to date, although illicit trade has grown.”
Mr Durante was more upfront, with the tobacco boss saying international criminals smuggling in illicit tobacco seemed the only winners from the previous federal government’s highly promoted world-first shift to strip cigarette packs of their branding in flavour of plain packaging.
”But that’s the biggest impact of plain package introduction, it was the growth of illicit trade. Because every day, the consumption and volumes, we haven’t seen any change in the trends,” Mr Durante told overseas stockmarket analysts.
