{"id":48613,"date":"2026-05-26T00:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/48613\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T00:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:41:13","slug":"illicit-trade-higher-costs-weigh-on-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/48613\/","title":{"rendered":"Illicit trade, higher costs weigh on BAT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PETALING JAYA: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com.my\/business\/marketwatch\/stocks\/?qcounter=BAT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">British American Tobacco (M) Bhd<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/charts.thestar.com.my\/?s=BAT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"go-chart\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/chart.png\"\/><\/a> has recorded a net loss of RM35.1mil for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026 (1Q26) compared to a net profit of RM23.3mil in 1Q25, as illegal cigarettes continue to dominate the market with a 56.7% share.<\/p>\n<p>Revenue for the quarter halved to RM160.3mil reflecting lower volumes amid a more challenging operating environment.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s operating expenses increased by 74.7%, driven primarily by one off regulatory implementation costs and restructuring-related costs.<\/p>\n<p>BAT Malaysia managing director Nedal Salem said in a statement that the company\u2019s 1Q26 financial performance reflects a transitional period as it implements several key internal changes to strengthen and optimise a long-term operating model and competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe increase in operating costs during the quarter was a result of the planned investments related to regulatory compliance requirements, in particular the implementation of the retail display ban, and the execution of our new route-to-market model, which we believe will deliver a more agile and efficient business moving forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The company further noted in a stock exchange filing that on a year-to-date basis, the legal combustible segment recorded a 4.5% decline in volume, reflecting ongoing structural pressures on the legal tobacco market.<\/p>\n<p>This was accompanied by a 2.3-percentage-point rise in illicit cigarette incidence, the first increase in illicit cigarette incidence since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PETALING JAYA: British American Tobacco (M) Bhd has recorded a net loss of RM35.1mil for the first quarter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20745],"tags":[20774,20030,24402,8795,24403,8739],"class_list":["post-48613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-british-american-tobacco","tag-bat","tag-british-american-tobacco","tag-cigarette","tag-corporate-news","tag-illicit","tag-tobacco"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116638101222492607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}