“As a testament to the resilience of our combustible model, we are still targeting combustible gross profit growth in H2.”

In context

“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 growth in H2. Supported by pricing, and cost efficiencies. For smoke-free products, we anticipate continued double-digit volume growth in H2 including the expected reversal of H1 phasing benefit on IQOS. However, given cigarette dynamic, it is possible that H2 may see modest decline for total PMI volumes. Importantly, with the forecast full year increase of around plus 1%, we continue to target our fifth consecutive year of total volume growth as we do for future years as our smoke portfolio continues to drive performance. Breaking the performance down by category, exceptional gross margin and OI growth in Q2 resulted in impressive first half results powered by our increasingly profitable smoke-free business. H1 Smoke-Free net revenue grew organically by plus 17.3% to $8.1 billion and gross profit by p”