GREENSBORO
Lorillard Inc. said Monday that its fourth-quarter profit fell as the maker of Newport cigarettes faced higher manufacturing costs and other expenses.
The nation's third-largest cigarette company's earnings dropped 6 percent to $242 million, or $1.52 per share. This narrowly beat the $1.51-per-share estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. These estimates usually take out one-time items.
Lorillard reported a profit of $258 million, or $1.53 per share, a year earlier.
The company, based in Greensboro, N.C., said it had fewer shares outstanding in the current quarter, which boosted its earnings-per-share results by 9 cents.
But Lorillard's results were squeezed by higher costs, such as a 5 percent increase in selling, general and administrative expenses.
Domestic wholesale cigarette shipments slipped 3.6 percent in the quarter and fell about 4 percent for the year. Still, the cigarette maker said its full-year decline was smaller than the 8.6 percent dropoff that was the industry average.
Sales climbed 27 percent to $1.38 billion. About $270 million of the growth was due to April's 62 cents-per-pack federal excise tax increase. Excluding excise taxes, sales rose 2.2 percent to $932 million.
Newport's domestic market share climbed by 0.46 points to 10.32 percent during the quarter.
Lorillard said its revenue benefited from higher average prices, but that was somewhat offset by selling fewer cigarettes and spending more on promotions.
Full-year profit climbed 7 percent to $948 million, or $5.76 per share.
Annual net sales rose 25 percent to $5.23 billion from $4.2 billion. Removing excise taxes, sales grew 5.6 percent to $3.69 billion.
The company saw Newport's domestic market share rise by 0.36 points to 10.28 percent for the year.
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