British tobacco company Imperial Brands has said that its divestment plan is on track and progressing well, and it expects full-year results in line with expectations as it ramps up the release of vaping products.
In May, Imperial said it planned to sell assets to streamline its business and was targeting proceeds of up to £2 billion within the next 12 to 24 months.
The maker of Gualoises, Kool and Winston cigarettes also said at the time it was rolling out new vaping devices as part of its blu e-cigarette brand. On Tuesday, the company said it was hosting an event focusing on what it refers to as the "New Generation Products" business.
Management Incentives
"Our NGP ambitions are reflected in our management incentives to deliver compound annual revenue growth of 35-150 percent over the three years to FY20", the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Imperial is also launching a new product called Pulze, which heats the tobacco in the product rather than traditional cigarettes that burn tobacco.
The products could yield revenue as much as £1.5 billion in 2020 and could begin to contribute to total profit by FY19 end, Imperial added.
Traditional cigarette sales volumes are declining across markets as more people quit the deadly habit. However, Imperial said its tobacco business was delivering a much stronger second half and that volumes would outperform the industry although much less than the first half of the year.
Imperial has estimated that the e-cigarette market could exceed $30 billion by 2020, up from around $4 billion now. Earlier this summer, Imperial launched a product called myblu, in reaction to the popularity of U.S. upstart Juul.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
