Amid burgeoning cigarette sales -- up year-on-year by nearly 5% to 160 billion sticks -- Nigel Northridge, chief executive of UK tobacco company Gallaher Group, opined that the year-old advertising ban had affected sales not one jot.
And although he didn't spell it out, the ban has almost certainly bolstered the company's bottom line by excising almost all UK advertising and promotional costs. Full-year revenues for 2003 were up 7.5% to £9.05 billion ($16.51bn; €13.51bn), although pre-tax profit rose only 0.1% to £379m.
Data sourced from: Telegraph.co.uk; additional content by WARC staff
