In the first quarter of 2021, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) saw its revenue increase by 5.3 percent to JPY 547.5 billion, mostly driven by an increase in revenue from its international tobacco business. The company’s quarter one revenue was partially offset by a decline in revenue in the Japanese-domestic tobacco, pharmaceutical and processed food businesses.
“JT Group maintained a strong momentum in the tobacco business mainly fueled by continued market share gains in combustibles in many markets. Furthermore, temporary and favorable industry volume trends in some mature markets resulted in a robust first quarter,” commented Masamichi Terabatake, president and CEO of JT Group. “As announced in February, we are focusing our management resources on heated tobacco sticks and are currently preparing the launch of Ploom X, our next generation device in this category, in the second half of this year. Additionally, we are making steady progress as planned in developing a blueprint of our new operating model and organizational structure for a combined tobacco business from 2022.“With our robust first quarter performance, we aim to achieve our full year forecast. However, we cannot ignore the uncertainties that the COVID-19 pandemic poses, so we will continue to closely monitor the changing operating environment.”
