British American Tobacco PLC (LSE:BATS)<\/a>\u00a0shares were the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 in early Tuesday trading after the cigarette maker said 2026 numbers would be towards the lower end of its guidance.<\/p>\nGrowth in nicotine pouches and vaping products has been stronger than expected, helping offset continued declines in traditional cigarette volumes.<\/p>\n
The nicotine group upgraded its forecast for revenue growth from its New Categories arm, which includes Velo nicotine pouches, Vuse vaping products and glo heated tobacco devices, now\u00a0expecting “mid-teens” percentage growth in both the first half and full year, compared to the previous forecast for “low double-digit” growth.<\/p>\n
For the group as a whole, BAT maintained its guidance for group revenue growth of 3-5%, adjusted profit growth of 4-6% and adjusted diluted earnings per share growth of 5-8% in 2026, but it expects results to come in at the lower end of those ranges.<\/p>\n
Moreover, profit growth is expected to be weighted towards the second half of the year, reflecting an anticipated stabilisation in Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa markets and the increasing benefit of cost savings from its Fit2Win programme.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Tadeu Marroco insisted that full-year delivery is “firmly on track”, with the business “continuing to drive good momentum”, adding that the board is “confident in our ability to sustainably deliver our mid-term algorithm and strong cash returns for shareholders.”<\/p>\n
Velo pouches continued to perform strongly across all regions, extending a global market leadership position in its category, while there was an improving performance from Vuse in the US, the world’s largest vaping market.<\/p>\n
BAT said its cigarette business remained resilient, with group value share down 20 basis points and volume share down 30 basis points across its top markets, while strong pricing helped drive revenue and profit growth in the US despite heightened competition.<\/p>\n
On debt and returns,\u00a0the company also said it remains on course to reduce leverage to between two and 2.5 times adjusted earnings by the end of the year while returning cash to shareholders through a progressive dividend and \u00a31.3 billion of share buybacks.<\/p>\n
Marroco said BAT was monitoring developments in the Middle East but added there had been “no significant impact on the group at this time”.<\/p>\n
Analysts at Jefferies said organic revenue growth guidance for the lower end of 3-5% compares to the current consensus already at around 3.5%, while the City is expecting operations growth\u00a0at around 4.7%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAT slips on ‘low end’ guidance despite accelerating nicotine pouch growth Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock British…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20745],"tags":[20774,20030,20925,21166,9602,26893,26894,21549,1854,26895],"class_list":["post-54730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-british-american-tobacco","tag-bat","tag-british-american-tobacco","tag-british-american-tobacco-plc","tag-guidance","tag-nicotine","tag-nicotine-pouch","tag-percentage-growth","tag-profit-growth","tag-revenue-growth","tag-vaping-products"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116682129839094538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54730","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=54730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"BAT](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6221d5429c6ffc5a384da7433dc9aaa5.jpeg\")
BAT slips on ‘low end’ guidance despite accelerating nicotine pouch growth Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n