LONDON: British American Tobacco, the world's second-biggest maker of cigarettes, announced rising annual profits on Thursday as expansion into emerging markets improved the group's revenue.
Net profit rose 7.5 percent to £3.09 billion ($4.86 billion, 3.65 billion euros) in 2011, the maker of Dunhill and Lucky Strike cigarettes said in a results statement. Revenues increased three percent to £15.4 billion as higher prices helped offset a small decline in cigarette sales by volume for BAT, which also owns the Kent and Pall Mall brands.
It said it 705 billion cigarettes last year, down 0.4 percent.
Pretax profits increased 11 percent to £5.52 billion last year.
"2011 has been a very successful year ... and we carry momentum in market share growth and margin improvement into 2012," BAT chairman Richard Burrows said in the statement.
"The economic climate around the world is far from settled but we remain confident that our strategy should continue to generate growth for our shareholders in the years ahead."
The London-listed company is seeking to grow business further in emerging markets across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, as Western governments seek to cut cigarette usage in their countries.
BAT last year snapped up Protabaco, Colombia's second-largest cigarette maker, for $452 million.
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