“We aim to continue this run rate, as reflected in our 2024-2026 target of an incremental $2 billion in gross savings.”

In context

“plus 10% organic operating income growth. And as I covered earlier, we expect our overall H2 OI growth to be around the top of this range. This strong operating income growth in excess of an already healthy topline performance drove a better-than-expected organic margin expansion of plus 70 basis-points in the quarter. This was also the first-quarter this year, where gross margin expanded organically, notably, due to lower shipping costs, ILUMA margin improvement and lower device sales compared to the prior year. SG&A cost were also organically lower as a percentage of net revenue reflecting a good cost performance and some phasing between the third and fourth quarter. We delivered a further $120 million in gross cost efficiencies in Q3, now surpassing our $2 billion target for 2021-2023. We aim to continue this run rate, as reflected in our 2024-2026 target of an incremental $2 billion in gross savings. The Q3 margin currency variance include a 0.6 points impact from the Argentina balance sheet related item I mentioned earlier. By its nature, this does not carry-forward to future periods. Now moving to Swedish Match which is meaningfully accelerating our smoke-free growth trajectory as we progress towards becoming substantially smoke-free by 2030. Swedish Match business delivered excellent adjusted currency-neutral net revenue growth of plus 22% in Q3 and plus 18% year-to-date. This means that our adjusted pro forma year-to-date topline growth was 60 basis points higher at plus 8.3%. Swedish Match strong profitability also enhanced our year-to-date adjusted operating income margin by plus 70 basis-points. As we covered at Investor Day, Swedish Match smoke-free portfolio has excellent eco”