British American Tobacco p.l.c.

British American Tobacco p.l.c.

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 12, 2026

Tadeu Marroco

Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to welcome you to our full year 2025 results presentation.

With me this morning, Javed Iqbal, interim CFO, and Victoria Buxton, group head of investor relations. I will begin with our transformation highlights.

Javed will then take you through our financial results in more detail. Finally, I will return to talk more about our performance outlook and why we are confident in the pathway ahead given the clear momentum we are driving.

We will then take your questions. With that, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimers on slides 2 and 3.

Let's begin by looking at the positive transformation momentum we are driving. Starting with some key highlights.

We added 4.7 million smokeless consumers, bringing our total to 34.1 million, mainly driven by our continued strong performance in modern oral. This marks our strongest growth acceleration to date and positions us well for 2026.

We delivered 2025 group results at the top end of guidance, driven by resilient delivery in combustibles and an excellent performance from Velo in all three regions. Our disciplined focus on quality growth continues to improve returns on more targeted investments, with new category contributing now up 77% at constant rates.

Alongside this, we remain committed to investing behind our premium innovation launches, supporting long-term value creation. We continue to deliver strong cash returns for shareholders.

In addition to our progressive dividend, in December, we announced an increase to our share buyback to £1.3 billion in 2026. Looking ahead, we are confident in returning to our mid-term algorithm this year, with the accelerated momentum through the second half of 2025 positioning us well for continued delivery.

I'm proud that we have delivered on all of our 2025 priorities, and I want to thank our teams around the world for driving these encouraging results. Our performance reflects the clear momentum we are driving as we continue to build a track record of delivery.

I'd like to take a moment to highlight two areas from last year that stand out to me. First, the return to both revenue and profit growth in the US for the first time since 2022, a significant milestone driven by stronger combustibles performance, a return to revenue growth in vapor in the second half, and modern oral.

As a result, we grew 30 basis points of combustibles value share. Second, we are delivering quality growth in new categories, launching premium innovations in each category while delivering a return to double-digit revenue growth in second half and category contribution growth up 77% for the full year.

The progress we made in 2025 reinforces my confidence in our future delivery. With that, I will hand over to Javed to take you through our 2025 performance in more detail.

Javed Iqbal

Thank you, Tadeu, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to share that we delivered results at the top end of guidance on a constant currency basis.

The performance was driven by return to growth in the US, a robust performance in AME, and the strength of modern oral globally. Our reported numbers reflect some adjusting items, including nearly £1.6 billion mainly related to the annual amortization of our US-acquired trademarks; a net credit of £524 million following a change in the forecasted outlook for the Canadian combustible industry; we also recognized a gain of nearly £900 million from the partial monetization of our ITC stake.

To give you a clear view of our underlying performance, I will focus on constant currency, adjusted, and where applicable, adjusted for Canada matters. You can find further detail on adjusting items and share data in the appendix.

We delivered group results at the top end of guidance, supported by accelerated momentum through the second half. Group revenue increased by 2.1%, adjusted profit rose 3.4%, adjusted profit from operations grew 2.3%, and adjusted diluted EPS was up 3.4%.

Let's now turn to new categories revenue, grew by 7%, driven by outstanding growth in modern oral, which was up strongly by 48%, with heated products up 1%. This was partially offset by a nearly 9% decline in vapor, mainly due to continued illicit pressures in the US and Canada.

Our second half Vuse performance showed a clear improvement versus the mid-teens decline in H1, supported by early signs of strong enforcement activity in the US. We continue to deliver quality growth with gross profit up over £200 million and category contribution reaching £442 million.

This reflects our disciplined approach to return on investment, targeted investments in high-value markets, and increasing scale benefit across our portfolio. I am proud of the progress we are making, and I'm particularly pleased with our accelerated H2 momentum, where we returned to double-digit new category revenue growth.

Now turning to combustible, revenue grew 1%, with volume decline more than offset by continued robust price mix across markets. We delivered quality growth here too.

Both gross profit and category contribution increased 2.5%, driven by a strong performance in the US, positive price mix, and continued productivity and simplification gains, which I will speak to shortly. Our performance highlights the breadth of our global footprint, with strong delivery in the US and AME more than offsetting fiscal and regulatory headwinds in Bangladesh and Australia, which impacted total group revenue by around 1% and group adjusted profit from operations by around 2%.

This resilience and increasing momentum in H2 reinforces our confidence in future delivery. Turning to our regions, starting with the US.

In combustibles, we delivered a 4.6% increase in revenue, with our strengthened portfolio, sharper execution, and enhanced revenue growth management driving price mix, including excise duty drawback. Value share increased 30 basis points, with volume share down 10 basis points.

In new category, revenue grew nearly 20%, driven by the success of Velo Plus, which delivered over 300% growth. While vapor revenue was down 3.4% for the full year, we are encouraged that Vuse returned to revenue growth in H2, supported by early signs of enforcement actions.

Overall US revenue increased 5.5% and adjusted profit grew 5.9%, mostly driven by a strong combustible performance. Importantly, Velo Plus reached positive category contribution within its first year, underscoring the scalability of our modern oral business model.

Tadeu will share more detail on the US shortly. In AME, we delivered another robust performance.

Revenue grew over 3%, with combustible up more than 2%, supported by strong delivery in Brazil, Turkey, and Mexico with solid pricing. New category revenue increased 4.3%, mainly driven by modern oral, which grew over 17%.

We are the clear modern oral leaders in the region, with over 60% volume share in top markets, selling at a premium, and strongly outperforming peers, which Tadeu will expand on later. Growth was further supported by heated products, with revenue up over 6%, driven by Italy, Germany, and Ukraine.

This was partially offset by competitive dynamics in Romania as we reallocated resources ahead of the glo Hilo launch. Vapor revenue declined more than 11%, mostly impacted by the lack of illicit enforcement in Canada and regulatory and excise changes in UK, France, and Poland.

Adjusted operating profit grew by nearly 10%, driven by operating leverage and efficiency gains in combustibles, and scale benefit and resource allocation driving improved contribution across all three new categories. AME is a true multicategory region, delivering high-quality growth and demonstrating the resilience and balance of our portfolio.

In APMEA, growth in key markets, including Pakistan, Nigeria, and Indonesia, was more than offset by fiscal and regulatory headwinds in Bangladesh and Australia. Total revenue declined 7.2%, with combustibles down 8.3%.

New category revenue was down 7.6%. Strong growth in modern oral was more than offset by heightened competitive activity in heated products in the value-for-money segment in South Korea and Japan, along the phase-out of our super-slim platform.

Our vapor performance reflects strategic decisions taken to reduce our footprint and reallocate resources away from markets where regulation and enforcement do not support a responsible competitive landscape. Adjusted profit was down 17.9%, mainly due to challenges in Bangladesh and Australia.

As we continue to navigate headwinds into 2026, we expect our performance to stabilize for the full year, supported by Bangladesh as we lap last year's decline, and with the drag from Australia becoming progressively less material year-on-year. Turning now to our group operating margin, which was broadly flat at 44%.

We successfully offset inflationary and FX pressures through a strong US performance, higher profitability in new categories, and continued cost savings. Transactional FX headwinds on adjusted profit of approximately 1% were primarily driven by Turkey, Japan, and Nigeria.

At current rate, operating margin expanded by close to 10 basis points. BAT has a strong track record of discipline and cost savings, and we continue to build on that foundation.

Since 2023, we have delivered £1.2 billion in productivity savings. These efficiencies help us offset inflationary pressures and foreign exchange headwinds while continuing to fund innovations and growth in new categories.

In 2025 alone, we absorbed around £300 million of inflationary cost increases in addition to transactional FX. Looking ahead, we remain focused on simplifying combustibles and scaling new categories, targeting a further £2 billion in productivity savings by 2030.

In addition, we now expect our Fit to Win program to deliver £600 million of annualized incremental savings by 2028. We expect around £500 million of these savings to be delivered by 2027, with the remaining benefits realized by the end of 2028.

We are committed to reinvesting these savings to support further sustainable growth initiatives. Fit to Win is a transformational project that is reinventing BAT.

As outlined at our 2025 half-year results, it is centered on optimizing processes and ways of working to create a leaner, faster, and more data-driven organization. Since half year, we have made strong progress.

We have expanded the program to include organizational streamlining to sharpen focus and improve speed of execution, allowing us to raise total annualized savings by a further £100 million. To unlock these benefits, we now expect around £600 million of associated costs over the next 2 years.

As a structured, time-bound program, £500 million will be treated as adjusting, including around £100 million of noncash items. As previously guided, this spend is already underway, with the majority of costs expected to be incurred this year and concluding in 2027.

Bringing it all together, earnings per share increased by 3.4% as operating profit growth and lower share count was partly offset by net finance costs, our reduced share of ITC profits, and tax. Our underlying tax rate was 24.5%.

Our strong cash generation continues to enhance our financial flexibility. This has enabled us to announce a 2% increase in our dividend and increase our share buyback by £200 million to £1.3 billion for 2026.

Alongside this, we continue to deliver to 2.55 times adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA at the end of 2025, and we remain on track to be within our 2 to 2.5 times target range by year-end. While our 2025 cash delivery was impacted by the CCBA upfront payment and the prior-year deferral of tax payments in the US, we remain on track to deliver more than £50 billion in free cash flow by the end of 2030.

We continue to focus on our capital allocation priorities, which are: investing in transformation, balancing deleveraging with progressive dividends and sustainable share buybacks, and selective bolt-on M&A to support our transformation. I'm excited about the future and confident in our ability to deliver our mid-term algorithm of 3% to 5% revenue growth, 4% to 6% adjusted profit from operations growth, and 5% to 8% adjusted diluted EPS growth.

Our return to this mid-term algorithm in 2026 marks a major milestone in our transformation journey and reinforces the strength and resilience of our strategy. Our confidence is underpinned by continued growth in the US; robust multicategory delivery in AME; low double-digit new category revenue growth led by Velo globally; a further improvement in new category contribution; and continued savings from our productivity programs.

Although we still have more work to do, and it will take time to stabilize performance in APMEA, we will continue to invest in our premium innovations rollout. As a result, we expect 2026 to be at the lower end of these ranges and our profit performance to be second-half weighted, driven by the phasing of new category investment and as Fit to Win savings build through the year.

With that, I'll hand it back to Tadeu.

Tadeu Marroco

Thank you, Javed. Moving on now to the positive transformation momentum we are driving.

In 2023, when I became Chief Executive, I committed to sharpening our focus and execution, guided by a refined strategy and ambition to become a predominantly smokeless business by 2035. I'm proud to say that we have made significant progress across all three strategic pillars as we continue to build a track record of delivery.

While there is still more to do, I'm confident that our focus, investments, and sharper execution are driving real momentum, as you can see from our 2025 results. Our progress underpins our confidence in sustainably delivering our mid-term algorithm while continuing to reward shareholders with strong cash returns.

I'd now like to highlight five points that demonstrate this. First, we have successfully reset our US business, returning to revenue and profit growth in 2025.

While the US macroeconomic environment remains dynamic, the pace of combustibles industry volume decline started to moderate in 2025, down 7.4%. Against this backdrop, driven by the actions we have taken to strengthen our portfolio and sharpen execution, our US combustibles business delivered strong revenue and profit growth in 2025.

Driving value from our combustible business is essential to funding our transformation, and the US is a key driver of this. In line with this strategy, we gained 30 basis points of total industry value share.

I'm particularly encouraged that our financial performance accelerated in the second half. This positive momentum reinforces my confidence in the resilience of our US combustible business and our ability to deliver sustainable value going forward.

Velo Plus is the fastest-growing modern oral brand in the largest modern oral value pool globally. Since launch at the end of 2024, it has already reached the number two position in both volume and value share, gaining nearly 18 percentage points of volume share and nearly 14 points of value share.

We are pleased to that our share momentum has continued into the start of 2026. Velo Plus has more than doubled its consumer base and driven over 300% modern oral revenue growth, capturing around 70% of industry volume growth and 80% of industry value growth in December.

All of this is underpinned by a consistent repurchase rate of around 70% throughout the year. Importantly, we achieved positive category contribution within the first 12 months of launch, fully aligned with Velo's global payback profile.

The total US modern oral category continues to grow strongly and has already overtaken the size of the legitimate vapor category at over £2 billion of revenue in 2025. Velo Plus is a great product, and these results demonstrate this in what remains a highly dynamic category.

Its impressive success also highlights the broader strength of our US capabilities and executional excellence, from consumer insights and branding to enhanced digital analytics and distribution, enabled by a rejuvenated Reynolds. Our performance was further enhanced by the successful launch of Grizzly Modern Oral in the summer, which achieved close to 2% volume share by year-end, taking our total volume share of US modern oral to 25.8%.

Through this momentum, I'm delighted to announce that at the end of the year, we reached global volume share leadership in modern oral measured across the top modern oral markets, representing around 90% of total industry revenue. Second, we are premiumizing our new category portfolio.

Velo is already the clear European leader, around six times larger than our nearest competitor. We continue to focus on consumer-led innovation to strengthen product satisfaction among adult consumers and extend Velo's success.

At the start of this year, we began the nationwide rollout of our latest innovation, Velo Shift, in Sweden following a successful pilot with key retailers and online partners. Velo Shift is reshaping the modern oral experience, featuring a new comfort pouch design, five distinct sensory flavors, and a differentiated can that stands out on shelf.

Trading at a premium to the core Velo range, Velo Shift is already driving incremental share in the channels where it has launched, with further market rollouts planned through 2026. These results highlight not only the strength of Velo brand and innovation pipeline, but also the quality of our execution across European markets.

We see premium vapor done right as a highly attractive, untapped segment for further value creation. Vuse Ultra is our most advanced vapor device yet, driving meaningful performance improvement for Vuse in markets where we have launched, including value share gains of nearly 8 percentage points in Canada, close to 4 percentage points in Germany, and above 2 percentage points in France.

As Javed highlighted, we have made proactive strategic decisions to focus our execution on the largest profit pools with more supportive regulation and enforcement. Vuse Ultra is central to this approach, and I'm encouraged by the strength of its early performance, with further launches planned in the key markets in 2026.

Our breakthrough innovation platform, glo Hilo, introduced our first two-piece device and is designed to establish glo in the premium segment. While still early days, we are starting to drive encouraging results in priority launch markets—Japan, Poland, and Italy—with the majority of consumers new to glo coming from both premium combustibles and the broader heated products category.

We are also strengthening glo's overall brand equity across key consumer metrics. This consumer response is translating to early volume share momentum.

We are encouraged by early trial to retention rates of around 50%, providing further confidence in the platform's potential. In 2026, our focus will be on accelerating trial among premium consumers across both combustibles and heated products, supported by targeted online and in-person activations.

We will continue to scale glo Hilo through additional market rollouts in the largest heated product profit pools, where we can generate the strongest returns. Overall, we remain confident in the strength of this innovation platform and expect to progressively build share within the premium segment over time.

As Javed highlighted, the heated products category remained highly competitive, and this has impacted our 2025 performance in the value-for-money segment, where we are present with glo Hyper. Introducing glo Hilo into the premium space allows us to further differentiate and tier our portfolio.

We see a clear opportunity to strengthen glo's overall performance across both premium and value-for-money segments. Central to this is the launch of our next-generation glo Hyper device from Q2.

The new glo Hyper delivers a step-change offering: quick start, longer standard session length, new connectivity, and a replaceable battery. These innovations significantly improve the consumer experience, and we are also further enhancing the consumables range.

Taken together, these upgrades create a much stronger proposition designed to reinforce our competitiveness in the value-for-money segment. Third, I'm proud of the strong progress we have made in improving new category profitability.

Since 2021, we have driven a £1.4 billion improvement in category contribution, with all three new categories contributing to this momentum. Importantly, we have achieved this while continuing to invest in our transformation to drive future sustainable growth.

Our new categories are meaningfully contributing to group results as we benefit from increased scale, reflecting traction in established markets while continuing to invest in new market launches. This is supported by more consistent and constructive regulatory frameworks, such as those in place for modern oral in 24 markets, up from just 4 markets in 2022.

We have sequentially improved our performance each year, and through our quality growth approach, we remain committed to driving sustainable profitability improvements moving forward. Fourth, I'm encouraged by the signs of positive progress we are seeing in the regulation and enforcement of new categories, especially in the US.

While the vapor category continues to be impacted by the proliferation of illicit products, Vuse returned to revenue growth in the second half after 18 months of decline. This has been supported by increased state-level enforcement, with vapor directory and enforcement legislation representing around 50% of tracked industry volume by year-end.

In addition, Vuse performance in the second half benefited from a competitor exit, further strengthening our market position. Our recovery has also been supported by early signs of increased federal enforcement targeting borders and larger distributors, resulting in high levels of seizures and fines.

Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the increased focus and funding directed towards strengthening the FDA's enforcement capabilities. We were also pleased to receive a favorable initial determination on our International Trade Commission complaint from the administrative law judge, who has recommended a general exclusion order on imported illicit vapor devices.

We expect a final determination from the ITC in the coming weeks, which will then be subject to a 60-day presidential review. With an estimated 70% of the US vapor industry value still illicit, we are hopeful the authorities will continue with enforcement initiatives in 2026.

Reynolds continues to advocate for a level playing field so that adult nicotine consumers have access to high-quality, compliant vapor products. Over time, we believe Vuse is well positioned to benefit from strong enforcement at both the federal and state levels.

In addition, the FDA has recently recognized the positive role that nicotine pouches can play in helping adult smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, to transition to less risk alternatives, reinforcing their role in tobacco harm reduction. We welcome the FDA's new pilot program to streamline the PMTA review process for nicotine pouches.

This is an important step towards keeping underage-appealing illicit products out of the market while giving responsible manufacturers a more predictable path to PMTA authorization. We are confident in the strength of our science and portfolio, and we look forward to being able to complement our existing US portfolio with Velo Max, a higher-moisture modern oral product in 2026, and we have increased capacity to support our sustainable growth agenda.

The final point I'd like to highlight is that our financial flexibility continues to strengthen, and we remain on track to generate more than £50 billion of free cash flow by 2030. BAT is a highly cash-generative business, delivering at least 100% operating cash conversion annually since 2020—100% of operating cash conversion—reflecting our strong cash discipline and clear focus on returns and enabling us to return £34 billion of cash to shareholders over the same period.

We remain committed to delivering sustainable shareholder returns with a 25-year track record of dividend growth and our sustainable share buyback program. I'm confident that we will sustainably deliver our mid-term algorithm as we are firmly committed to growing revenue sustainably and improving profitability.

To conclude, we are carrying momentum into 2026, underpinned by a robust innovation pipeline, strong strategic partnerships, and confidence in our future fit capabilities. We are executing with discipline and delivering against our priorities.

At the same time, we are enhancing financial flexibility, enabling continued investment in our transformation, together with strong cash returns. I'm excited about the future for BAT and believe we are well positioned to deliver long-term sustainable growth and value for all our stakeholders.

Thank you for listening. We will now be joined on stage by Victoria for the question-and-answer session.

Victoria Buxton

Thank you, Tadeu, and good morning, everyone. If you've joined us via the webcast, you can type your question directly into the online question box, or if you joined the call, you can press *1 on your telephone keypad.

Tadeu and Javed will be very happy to take your questions, and I will now hand over to the conference call operator.

Operator

Thank you. Our first question is from Andrei Andon-Ionita from Jefferies.

Please go ahead, sir.

Andrei Andon-Ionita

Good morning, Tadeu, Javed, and VB, and thank you very much for taking my questions. Two questions on modern oral, please.

Number one, what are your expectations in terms of performance in the US in fiscal 2026 for modern oral specifically? Secondly, are these expectations underpinned by the FDA approving the European Velo product for sale in the US, or are they mainly driven by the existing Velo Plus product?

Perhaps finally, in terms of profitability, could you tell us a bit more about how you expect new categories profitability to evolve in fiscal 2026? Thank you.

Tadeu Marroco

Andrei. Thank you for the question.

Look, we have a very strong product with Velo Plus in the US. The levels of retention has been 70% throughout the year, which is really, really a very strong rate when you compare with other offers in the market.

Basically, at the back of that, we believe that the product is competent enough to continue growing in the US market, has all the indications for that. Today, we still have a low level of awareness in the brand, around 30%.

We are present now in 150-plus thousand outlets, which account for something like 93% of the total oral revenue. We are also seeing that the average daily consumption, as new products start to be more satisfying for consumers in the US, is increasing.

Used to be around 2.8 pouches per day, today is around 3.6 pouches per day. If you compare that with the European market, which is around 6 pouches per day, you see a lot of potential growth still in the US.

The Nordics is 12 pouches per day. When you pull all this together—a strong product and the dynamics of the market evolving at the pace that it is in the US—so the expectation is that we will continue growing.

That's why we are investing in capacity like I mentioned during my presentation. We mentioned Velo Max, which is a even higher moisture product that we have as part of the pilot that the FDA is running.

We welcome first of all that FDA's embracing nicotine pouch as a key category to address tobacco harm reduction in the US, because is the lowest risk profile if you want. There is no inhalation, there is no tobacco, there is no smell, there is much easier for consumers of cigarette to convert into a much lower risk profile product.

They are putting in place these pilots. We hope that for the next few months, we see our products, and we are cautious that other competitors will come with other products as well.

For us, there is no problem with that, because when I look outside the US where everyone is free to compete, the leading brand outside the US is Velo. Like we said, in Europe, our volumes in Velo are six times higher than the second-largest competitor.

What we want to see in the US is a level playing field, because in a level playing field, we know that we can win. That's the first question on Velo.

In terms of profitability, we have made a very strong improvement in profitability when you compare that not long ago, back in 2023, we're just reaching breakeven in this category, and today we have a 12% category contribution. Obviously, I always said that this will not be linear year after year, because there will be years where we are going to reinvest back in the business at the back of exciting innovations, and 2026 is one of these years, because as I said during my presentation, we have now premium innovation in every single of those categories.

We want to roll out glo Hilo, we want to roll out Velo Shift, we want to carry on rolling out Vuse Ultra. We are not concerned about stipulating a specific pace of category growth year-on-year, because this will vary over time, but the trend is very clearly: the category will continue to grow.

Operator

Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Faham Baig from UBS.

Please go ahead.

Faham Baig

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question.

The first one is on guidance for full year 2026. You've guided for the lower end of the mid-term targets.

Could you maybe share factors that could result in the performance, whether in 2026 or beyond that, getting you to the middle or even upper half of the range would be helpful. Then the second question is on heated tobacco.

I guess it was a tough year in 2025 from a share perspective. How do you think about share progressing through 2026, particularly as competition in the category is intensifying?

Tadeu Marroco

Thank you, Faham. Look, I want to start with the second one first, and then we address the guidance.

We clearly see areas of improvement in our performance in heated products. What we saw throughout 2026 is that the below-waist, which is basically where we were present until the launch of glo Hilo later in the year, has been very competitive in some of the key markets.

That's the reason why I have just made the point today that we are coming with a revamped Hyper product that we believe that, together with revamped consumables, will strengthen our position in that particular segment. We are very encouraged by what we have seen of the performance of this product, and in initial tests that we have been doing.

We believe that this will support our performance moving forward. Obviously glo Hilo will complement that, because it's the first attempt that we have done where 70% of the value of the category sits, which is the A-WAAP, the premium part of it, and we are extremely pleased with the performance.

We are growing week after week with a level of retention of 50%, and this, complemented by a revamped value-for-money proposition, gives us the confidence that we can revert this trend and start growing from here. Now, in terms of the guidance, I think that Javed can explain a bit more about 2026.

I just want to call the attention that, after 2 years of investing in resetting our business—the US business, our innovations pipeline—BAT is ready to go back to the mid-term algorithm that we have always had in the company, around a 3% revenue, 5% revenue, leading to a 4% to 6% operating profit, with a kicker around 1% to 2% for EPS, that's the range of 5% to 8%. Obviously, our targets have incorporate the transaction FX, I always try to make this disclaimer about BAT's targets.

The profile of growth of these range will differ now from where we were, I would say, several years ago, because the new category will be even more prominent on that. Out of the 3% to 5%, we have mentioned before that combustible we expect to be delivering around 1% to 2%, and with the US being in the medium term between 0% to 1%, and the rest of the group, the international part, I would say the other two regions, above 2%.

In 2025, we have, despite all the difficulties that we face mainly in the APMEA region, we were able to deliver 1%. We said that Bangladesh and Australia had an impact of 1% at top line, which otherwise would be high end of this range.

I'm very confident that, moving forward, we can comfortably be delivering within those range. When you move to new categories for the algorithm to work, we had to deliver double-digit new category.

Hasn't been the case in 2025, basically because of the headwind we face in vapor. There were a number of reasons for that, but mainly related to the illegal market in the US that now we are seeing signs that the authorities, be federal or state level, are addressing.

We expect moving forward to have less of a drag and eventually even a tailwind coming from vapor that will be support of the category for BAT. THP, we just spoke about, and we expect to accelerate our growth from now on with all the offers.

Obviously, modern oral, we have a leading brand now, and we expect to grow from strength to strength. I'm very confident about being able to deliver the double-digit new category revenue growth, to deliver 1% to 2% on the combustible side.

This will flow through to the 4% to 6% in terms of increasing margins that is supported by all the productivity savings that we have already mapped out until 2030. Specifically in 2026, I would like Javed to comment about.

Javed Iqbal

Thank you, Tadeu. I think on 2026 specifically, if I go region by region, and then we can look at overall.

In case of APMEA, as I highlighted that we expect Bangladesh to be not a big drag, but Australia still remain a meaningful drag, which is becoming smaller and smaller every year. In 2026, Australia will still be a drag, but will be less meaningful in 2027.

Having said that, also, we will continue to invest in the rollout of premium innovations in APMEA as well, as you saw in terms of glo Hyper, so that where we'll be there as well. The other thing is in that area is that, in case of AME, we still face headwinds from the illicit environment in vapor, and also the regulation changes in Poland which happened at the end of the year, which has made the legal vapor out of the market, which is again a drag for us.

Coming to US, you have to keep in mind that comparator from 2024 to 2025 versus 2025 to 2026 is very different. We had a very good performance in 2025, so that comparators changes.

Also we are assuming for now stable volumes in Vuse in US. We are expecting that the enforcement level as we've seen so today will stop the decline, but we'll keep the volume overall stable.

Lastly, also we highlighted in our pre-close trading update that we are exiting certain geographies which are not adjusted, but they will have an impact on our numbers in 2026. Hope this all gives you a idea of why the lower end of 2026.

Having said that, we are all very proud and confident in the business that we are entering the first year of our mid-term algorithm.

Faham Baig

Very comprehensive. Thank you both.

Appreciate that.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Rey Wium from Anchor Stockbrokers.

Please go ahead.

Rey Wium

Good day, Tadeu, Javed, Victoria. It's quite interesting to listen to your optimism around the new categories.

I just had a quick look at the numbers. Obviously, modern oral is doing exceptionally well.

You have the opportunity for vapor to at least stabilize, and heated tobacco, I don't know whether the jury's still out there, but I don't know if you can just talk high-level stuff here, to give us an idea which of these categories give you, or makes you the most excited in terms of the future growth in terms of that, especially now into 2026, we talk of a double-digit revenue growth. Then just a follow-up, just on Australia.

It's quite interesting, because I sit in this market. The legal market is now down to 3 billion sticks or less.

Now, clearly, if I look at Japan, that's basically what Japan will consume the space of 7 days. I struggle to understand why you say it will still be a drag.

Is it not about the time that you could consider to exit this market? I'm just curious to hear your thoughts around that.

Thank you.

Tadeu Marroco

Okay. Okay.

On the new categories, obviously modern oral is the exciting category out of the three. The pace of growth of modern oral around the world is is is very clear.

Even in markets where there is no oral tradition, you take for example the UK, that when we launched Velo here 4 years ago, the incidence of nicotine in oral was 0, and today is around 3%, sporadically can go all way to 4% in terms of Vuse. This is happening also in the likes of Poland, is happening in emerging markets because it's very affordable, like Pakistan, that is doing extremely well, South Africa doing extremely well, Kenya.

There is a massive potential, and we are very pleased with the fact that now we have 24 markets already that have passed legislation. The last one has actually been Argentina a few weeks ago, Portugal has just passed legislation as well.

We see clearly a lot of potential in this category, and we are obviously very pleased that we have a leading brand in this category. In terms of tobacco heating product, is a £9 billion revenue category in which BAT has just below £1 billion.

There is a lot of white space for us. It has been more and more competitive, but we have now a product that is being present in the in the in the value side of the category, if you want, on the premium side that has never been the case before.

With glo Hilo, we are tapping a very very as has been an untapped subcategory within the category for for BAT, and we we are extremely excited about the this possibility of to occupy some of that white space in a category that is still growing, not at the same rate of modern oral obviously, but it still grows at a mid- a mid-single digit or high single digit. Vapor is a is a difficult category because of of lack of enforcement and/or regulation, and that's the reason why we have There is actually a difficult to compete with some of these illegal products or products that doesn't have concerns in terms of responsible way of doing vapor.

That's why we came with this campaign, because you see a proliferation of a device with thousands of puffs that have a very different negative risk profile than the ones that we sell. There is no level playing field.

The reason why we are addressing a premium subcategory within vapor with the likes of Vuse Ultra is exactly a recognition of that. We are not really competing for volume, we are competing for value and and offering consumers a responsible way to do vapor.

Obviously the US is the largest vapor market, all the attention is to to the FDA that I think that has give some indications now that they understand that the root cause also of the problem is the lack of level playing field. Hopefully we can see some of the pilots that they're doing now in nicotine pouch into vapor in the future as well.

That's the new categories. Australia, look, Australia has, as come with a since the introduction of plain packaging in 2012 with a very misguided and illogical regulations year after year, and increasing excise at much higher than inflation to a point today that the average price of cigarette legal market in the Australia is more than 20 equivalent of £20, £22, and where whereas the illicit products is around £6.

As a consequence of that, 65% of the combustible market now is illegal. They have, in essence, reduced the average price for consumers, and for the first time in many years, we see an uptick of incidence of smokers in in Australia.

Not just they decimated the the tax collection, but also with this illogical regulation, they are seeing now incentivizing consumers to to to smoke a product that is much cheaper than the legal market, and obviously carrying on with all the criminality as we know have seen in many different markets. Now, the impact for us is that has always been a very important market for for BAT, and and but like Javed said, will come to a point that becomes is insignificant.

The drag in 2026 will not be the same as 2025. It's still a drag, but it's not be the same.

From then on, if the the government carries on doing that, which seems to be heading towards 100% illegality anyway, we don't even need to take a decision to leave, because this the direction of travel has been very clear. If you add the vapor category that has an incidence of 9% of adult consumer and is 100% illegal today, 85% of nicotine consumption in Australia today is illegal.

It's just a question of, a question of couple of years and and to unless they they decide to to to do something more reasonable, no?

Rey Wium

Thank you very much.

Operator

Okay. Our next question is from Pallav Mittal from Barclays.

Please go ahead.

Pallav Mittal

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

Two of them. Firstly, on the US business, clearly your price mix is pretty strong at 12%-plus.

Can you help us understand what percentage of your US volume portfolio is right now benefiting from the excise duty drawback, and how much scope does it have to increase in the future given your global business? That's the first one.

Then secondly, appreciate all the commentary on your NGP guidance for 2026, but your low double-digit growth, it still seems like you're factoring a pretty sharp normalization versus what we can see in data, especially on nicotine pouches and the e-vapor side of things. Can you just help us understand the moving parts for your low double-digit guidance for 2026?

Tadeu Marroco

Okay. Javed will cover your second question.

On the duty drawback, this is a longstanding legislation in the US to incentivize local manufacturing and promote export from the US. Obviously, what we are doing is exactly that.

Reynolds has invested more than $200 million in terms of manufacturing over the last couple of years. We had generate more than 800 jobs, and we increased our purchase of leaf in the US by 65%, and today Reynolds is the number one company in terms of volume of leaf purchase in the US market.

We are not making disclosure specifically about the duty drawback impact, but one data point for you to consider is the fact that our revenue in combustible would have been positive independent of the duty drawback. It's important to mention that, because at the end of the day, when you go back to what I was referring to in terms of the long-term algorithm, we expect the US market in terms of combustible to be declining at rates around 6% to 7%, and this should be, given the elasticity and that is still exist in the market, the possibility for Reynolds to get to a positive revenue around 0% to 1%.

In the current years, it has been more than that, because the company is doing extremely well in terms of the strength of the portfolio, but also the duty drawback is helping for those in that sense as well. Independent of the duty drawback, we are positive, and I feel very comfortable with the range that we have set ourselves for our long-term algorithm.

Javed Iqbal

I think on the overall new category revenue guidance of low double digits is couple of points. One in the US, even as I explained in my presentation, that we had a negative number for the full year on Vuse.

What we are expecting in the Vuse numbers to be flattish, because it will require a more meaningful and more stronger enforcement, and given a very complex and long supply chain, even those measures will take time to have a meaningful impact. Even the ITC regulation which Tadeu was talking about, if it gets passed through, it will be much later in the year when we'll see some meaningful impact.

Having said that, also as I highlighted the regulations, for example, in Poland in Europe, which has put a drag on the Vuse volume because it has made the legal business all a negative in that numbers, so that's not possible to enter that market. Also the highly competitive environment we see in the bewap segment within the heated product portfolio, as we were talking about earlier, that competitiveness will continue to be there for the short term.

If you put all this together, that's why our guidance on the low end of the teens. Having said that, we are very confident in mid-term that Velo will lead the charge of new category revenue growth, being the fastest-growing brand in the fastest-growing new nicotine category globally, including US.

However, said that, given all these points, that's why we have guided on this front as a low teens for now.

Pallav Mittal

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Simon Hales from Citi. Please go ahead.

Simon Hales

Thank you. Morning, Tadeu.

Morning, Javed. Morning, VB.

A couple for me. I wonder if I could just first come back to some of those comments you just made on the US business on a go-forward basis.

Javed, just back to the point in terms of the vapor performance and the flat vapor expectation for 2026, I'm still just trying to square that circle, given you hoped you've got pretty strong exit rate momentum through the second half of the year. I appreciate enforcement actions in vapor aren't a straight upward line, but we're still probably going to annualize at least through the first half some of the building enforcement we saw in 2025, and that should help the vapor category, one would imagine, or the legal vapor category in the first half.

Are you therefore expecting as we come into H2 of 2026 to see your Vuse business down year-on-year to get you back to that flat guidance for the year? That's the first point.

Then secondly, on the US, today you talked about 6% to 7% being the normal, helpful run rate of decline on combustibles volumes. Is that something you expect to see in 2026?

Could you also perhaps talk a little bit about what you're doing in discount at the moment, the performance of Doral last year and your plans on that brand going forward?

Javed Iqbal

If I take the first one. I think one thing which I have to highlight further on the second half performance of 2025 of Vuse in US, other than the enforcement, there is also one item which will not see repetition was the delisting of competitor product in which Vuse gained, 63% of those consumers stayed within the closed systems, and in an RCS system, Vuse gained more than their fair share of our category.

That is one thing which is also boosting Vuse performance in the second half. I wouldn't be reciprocating that second half into the full year of 2026.

Full year of 2026, it is more focused and will be more dependent upon the level of enforcement we see. As also highlighted by Tadeu, that although we have seen regulation covering 40% of the legal volume, but level of enforcement varies from state to state.

One, not having that one-off of the exit from a competition, which we gained more than fair share, and enforcement is still seems to be early days, so that's why our guidance on the Vuse comment was made by me.

Tadeu Marroco

On the volume side, my comment is more, I would say, a hypothetical situation. It's not a 2026.

What's happening in the US market is the following. If you go back to 2020, 54% of the nicotine users were using traditional nicotine products—combustible, traditional oral.

You go now to 2025, it's 34%. What's happening is the transition of these consumers to either poly-using or becoming solo users of smokeless products, either modern oral or vapor products.

Obviously, the secular decline that was related to ADC and level of incidence reducing over time around 4% will not be coming back. That's my point.

Even if you see a meaningful enforcement in vapor, in disposables, that we know that has currently plays a role in terms of the level of decline of cigarettes, even if we see that, even if we see a improvement in the macroeconomics in the US, it's very hard to imagine the market going back to 4% decline because of the dynamic of the poly-users and solo users in new categories that I was referring to. My point is that, in the long run, with a meaningful enforcement in disposables, with macroeconomics is strengthening between 6% to 7%, I think that where we sit today in the next couple of years in the scenario that we are seeing, I think that the performance in 2025 around 7% to 8% is a more reasonable one to assume.

That's what I would assume. Now, obviously, this is overall market.

When you separate from the overall market the deeper discount, the deeper discount has a very different dynamic. We are seeing more activity there from competitors, and as a consequence, we saw the deeper discount growing by 10% in 2025.

It was even higher than the 7% that they grew in 2024. We have been piloting Doral, to your question.

We have been always very mindful, because despite the fact that the deeper discount is growing, as opposed to the general market, the 90% 95% of the value continues to be outside the deeper discount. We are very mindful in terms of testing the product, in this case is Doral.

We did pilots in Louisiana, in West Virginia. What we are seeing in those pilots is suggesting that we'll be able to expand Doral for other states as well, taking into consideration the source of business, the potential downtrades of our own brands.

We are doing that with the value in mind. We are not doing that for the sake of market share.

We want to expand Doral in the states that makes sense from the value point of view.

Simon Hales

Got it. Thanks very much.

Operator

Our next question is from Felton Agaud from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Bastian Agaud

Good morning. Bastian from Bank of America.

Thank you for taking my question. I just have a quick one on the buyback.

Your net debt is close to the target 2.5, and your free cash flow in 2025 was quite strong. My question is, regarding the buyback, £1.3 billion for 2026, what kind of margin do you have to potentially increase it at some point or another during the year?

I understand that your debt is approximately 70% in dollar, could be quite volatile on that. Just to understand the moving parts on your buyback for full year 2026.

Thank you.

Javed Iqbal

I think, Bastian, thank you very much. We started a sustainable share buyback program in 2024, and we started it with £700 million.

Now we are at £1.3 billion with the increase of £200 million for 2026. We remain our focus on cash and also deliver.

We have to enter into our range of 2 to 2.5 times, and also we want to make sure that we continue to deliver additional incremental dividend in sterling terms, and continue our 25 years-plus record on that front, and continue a sustainable share buyback. What we want to ensure is to create more optionality for capital allocation in medium to long term for the business.

For now, I'm very comfortable with the increase we have done of £200 million from £1.1 to £1.3 billion for 2026, and we keep on focusing of generating cash to bring us back into our range of 2 to 2.5 times and continue a sustainable buyback.

Bastian Agaud

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Damian McNeela from Deutsche Numis.

Please go ahead.

Damian McNeela

Hi. Morning, everybody, and thanks for taking the questions.

First question is just on US combustible, and particularly on pricing. I was wondering if you could provide any more granularity on the pricing within the subsegments that you operate in and what the sort of outlook for 2026 might be for pricing, given the very strong year last year.

Then the second question is on capex. You've indicated a step-up this year.

I was just wondering whether that level of capex is what we should be expecting for outer years past 2026.

Tadeu Marroco

Thank you, Daniel. Look, on the capex side, we are increasing at the back of investments mainly on the modern oral space.

Most of the capex today is being reverted back to the new categories and in giving the space for us to continue growing. We don't have huge expectations to be much beyond the level that is currently, and this is suiting us well, because at that level, we still can be very close to the 100% of operating conversion.

It's not a limitation, but it's just a fact that with this level of capex address the business needs, at the same time, puts us in a strong position to continue having high levels of operating cash conversion, which is very helpful for the financial flexibility and capital allocation that Javed was referring to. On the US combustibles, look, I cannot be talking about pricing, and what I can say to you is that the price elasticity is still very benign in the US when you compare the price of cigarette vis-a-vis the average household income.

Obviously there is a dynamic there because of the specific tax that when we increase the price of a pack of cigarettes, the manufacturer have a higher benefit than the consumer perceive as a price increase, which is also helpful. What Reynolds has been doing is laddering some of our brands.

We did that very successfully with Newport. We have launched Pall Mall Select as well, which is another laddering, and we have now Doral, like I said, in pilot phase that we expect to roll out to more states.

I cannot speculate with you about future pricing.

Damian McNeela

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

It appears that was the last question today over the phone. With this, I'd like to hand the call back over to Victoria.

Over to you.

Victoria Buxton

Sorry. Thank you very much, everybody, for your questions.

I'm afraid that's all we have time for today. If you've put a question into the web, then the IR team will be delighted to answer the question as soon as we can.

I'd now like to hand back to Tadeu for closing remarks.

Tadeu Marroco

Okay. Thank you all for listening today and for your questions.

To close, I'm confident we have the right building blocks in place to deliver our mid-term algorithm, supported by delivering 2025 results at the top end of guidance. We will continue to reward our shareholders through strong cash returns, including our progressive dividend, a sustainable share buyback, and enabling us to deliver long-term growth and value creation.

Thank you again for joining us. I look forward to see many of you at the CAGNY conference next week, where we are presenting on the 18th of February.