“We expect gradual recoveries for the remainder of the year, though two year on year comparison are still likely to be affected.”

In context

“t growth in Europe and Japan as well as promising growth from global market such as Indonesia, South Korea, and global travel retail. H1 HTU shipments increased by plus 10.5%, broadly in line with adjusted in-market sales growth. As mentioned last quarter, I our H1 shipments include a Q1 shipment timing benefit of around one billion units which we expect to reverse in the fourth quarter. Overall and e-vapor shipments again, grew significantly. Cigarette volumes declined modestly in Q2 following the except exceptional growth of recent quarters. This was primarily due to contraction in Indonesia and in Turkey where we experienced supply chain issues following a change in regulatory requirement. This resulted in a temporary loss of volume and share with some associated inventory write downs. We expect gradual recoveries for the remainder of the year, though two year on year comparison are still likely to be affected. In Indonesia, despite a good share performance, a growing illicit segment is impacting both the legal industry and our volumes within it. And this is also likely to extend into H2. We expect our cigarette volumes to decline around 2% for the year, more in line with the historic underlying trend. This includes a forecast decline of 3% to 4% in H2 against the high prior year comparison I mentioned with Turkey accounting for close to half of the decline. This also factor the continuation of decline Europe and Japan as smoke-free product grows strongly and the dynamic in Indonesia and in Egypt where the recovery of the main local competitor is ongoing after previous supply constraint. As a testament to the resilience of our combustible model, we are still targeting combustible gross profit gr”