“We expect a significant acceleration in operating cash flow growth at around €13.5 billion at prevailing exchange rates and is subject to year-end working capital requirement.”

In context

“Taking all these elements into account, we forecast 2026 organic net revenue growth of five to 7%. We expect the same factors in addition to operating leverage and ongoing cost efficiencies to drive further robust margin expansion with projected organic operating income growth of seven to 9%. This includes continued strong investment behind our smoke-free portfolio. We are forecasting currency-neutral adjusted diluted EPS growth of 7.5% to 9.5% factoring in broadly stable net finance cost and an effective corporate tax rate approximately in line with 2025 at around 21.5%. Including an estimated 28 pen currency benefit at prevailing exchange rate, This translates to 11.3 to 13.3% growth to a range of $8.09 to $8.54. Which would mark another year of double-digit EPS growth in dollar terms. We expect a significant acceleration in operating cash flow growth at around €13.5 billion at prevailing exchange rates and is subject to year-end working capital requirement. The strong cash generation is expected to support further meaningful deleveraging in 2026 which I will come back to shortly. On a quarterly basis, we expect the first quarter to be the softest quarter of the year, reflecting demanding year-on-year comparison and investment phases. We expect first-quarter combustible volumes to decline by up to 5% as the lap a prior year quarter of volume growth whilst having the highest expected impact of the dynamics in Turkey, India, and Mexico, which I mentioned, for the full year. Smoke-free product shipments will also be by the US ZYN shipment dynamics explained by Emmanuel and the strong HDO comparator. With low levels of commercial activity on ZIM in prior year impacting the net revenue per car per can comparison and a higher quarter of investment”