Imperial Brands refutes Nielsen sales estimates

Imperial Brands said on Thursday that industry figures published the day before by Nielsen showing a big drop in sales were wide of the mark.

Citing data from MSAi, Imperial said that over the four weeks ending on 18 May, sales of its factory manufactured cigarettes fell by 6.4% in comparison to a year ago.

According to Nielsen, they had fallen by 11.2%.

The company explained that MSAi compiled its weekly data from more than 300,000 stores representing at least 95% of US tobacco volumes.

Hence, Imperial said in a statement: "it does not rely on any extrapolation as a result of its extensive coverage."

Over the past 52 weeks, Imperial said that its own sales had fallen by 4.9%.

Management also predicted that full-year US industry volume declines would be a more pedestrian 4.5-5.0%.