MAJOR Southampton employer British American Tobacco (BAT) has seen sales rise amid rising demand for non-cigarette products.

The company, which has around 1,200 staff at Regents Park Road, saw sales rise more strongly than expected, by 8.1 per cent to £12.17billion, in the half-year to June.

It followed a year hit by the pandemic and heavy restrictions in countries including South Africa.

BAT said its “new categories” business, which consists of non-cigarette products, saw revenues increase 50 per cent to £942million in the period.

It said “non-combustible” products, such as its Vuse vaping brand and Glo heated tobacco brand, now make almost 12 per cent of total operations.

The firm said it had “great momentum” and was “well on track” to meet its targets of £5bn in new category revenue by 2025 and 50m customers using non-combustibles by 2030.

Adjusted profit from operations was up 5.4 per cent to £5.2bn.

Chief executive Jack Bowles said: “This has been an exciting period of growth in new categories, with new category constant currency revenue up by 50 per cent in the first half. We added 2.6m consumers, our highest ever increase, to our non-combustible product consumer base, to reach 16.1m. This demonstrates our accelerating transformation driven by our multi-category portfolio, with continued key market share gains in all three new categories.

“We are building strong, global brands of the future with Vuse, Velo and Glo.

“These are underpinned by industry leading multi-category consumer insights and science, with increasing digitalisation.

“We have invested a further incremental £346m in the first half, funded by continued value growth from combustibles and expect to reach our £1bn savings target 12 months early.

“Our rapid growth in new categories is driving significant scale benefits and 2021 is shaping up to be a pivotal year in our journey towards A Better Tomorrow.

“Our focus on new categories growth and business sustainability puts ESG (environmental, social and governance) at the core of our strategy. There is great momentum across the business and we are well on track to meet our targets of £5bn of new category revenue by 2025 and 50m non-combustible product consumers by 2030. We are committed to reducing the health impact of our business. Our ambition remains a sustainable, high growth, multi-category, consumer products business. I am excited about the future for BAT.”

The results came a day after the World Health Organisation branded e-cigarettes as “harmful” and called for better regulation to prevent young people from taking up vaping products.