Imperial Tobacco makes good start to year

Imperial, with cigarette brands including Lambert & Butler, West and Gauloises, was reporting on its first-quarter trading from October to December 2009 within its current financial year to end-September 2010.

"We have made a good start to the year with trading in line with our expectations despite the weak economic environment," Chief Executive Gareth Davis said in a statement ahead of the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Mr Davis is set to retire as group CEO in May and will be replaced by his number two, Alison Cooper, in a move that was confirmed last November. Davis and Cooper worked on Imperial's deal to acquired the Franco-Spanish Altadis in January 2008 for 12.6 billion euros to add brands like Gauloises and Fortuna.

Imperial is the number two cigarette maker in Europe after Philip Morris International with number one positions in Britain and Spain and No 2 in Germany and France.

Imperial has been able to raise cigarette prices in Britain, Spain and France since last September.

In Britain, Imperial said the overall 2009 duty-paid cigarette market rose 1 percent to 45.5 billion cigarettes, and its share was largely unchanged at 45.2 per cent in the year to December compared with 45.3 per cent in the year to September.

In Germany, market volumes declined by 2 percent to 85.5 billion cigarettes in 2009 with the group's market share largely steady at 27.1 per cent, while in a Spanish market which fell by 10 percent to 80.7 billion cigarettes in 2009 the group's market share was 30.1 percent.