KUALA LUMPUR, July 25 – British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Bhd (BAT Malaysia) posted a lower pre-tax profit at RM281.73 million in its second quarter ended June 30, 2013 from RM296.72 million a year earlier.

Its revenue, however, rose to RM1.156 billion in the period from RM1.067 billion last year while earnings per share was at 73.8 sen from 77.3 sen, it said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia today.

In a separate statement, the company said top line revenue growth from increased volume in contract manufacturing was counteracted by a weakening mix due to domestic volume decline in the face of illegal cigarette trade.

“On the positive side, we managed to strengthen our market leadership, with a 1.0 percentage point market share growth to register 61.5 per cent as of June 2013, compared to the same period last year,” BAT Malaysia managing director Stefano Clini said today.

He said Dunhill was the key driver of the 1.8 percentage point growth but this was offsetted by the declines across the rest of the portfolio.

Clini said share growth did not translate to volume and profit growth due to shrinking legal cigarette market volume.

“In the first half of 2013, we experienced a 3.6 per cent volume decline in domestic and duty-free volume versus the same period last year,” he added.

Arising from the group’s financial performance, BAT Malaysia declared a 68 sen per share second interim dividend. – Bernama