Ivorian Tobacco Maker Sitab Sees Higher Revenue, Lower Profits in 2025

AFRICAN STOCKS AND FINANCEMay 8, 2026 at 8:05 AM UTC

TLDR

Societe Ivoirienne des Tabacs (SITAB) saw higher revenue but lower profits in 2025 due to increased excise duties impacting margins. Net profit dropped by 18% to 36.2 billion FCFA.
SITAB, the leading cigarette manufacturer in Ivory Coast, faced challenges from rising production costs outpacing selling prices, despite a 25% revenue increase driven by government-mandated tobacco tax hikes.
Despite regulatory pressures like higher excise duties and plain packaging requirements, SITAB remains a profitable company with strong returns on equity, consistently distributing earnings to its parent company, Imperial Brands.

Societe Ivoirienne des Tabacs (BRVM: STBC) posted higher revenue but lower profits in 2025, as a steep rise in excise duties ate into margins — and then distributed virtually everything it earned back to its British parent.

Revenue rose 25% to 268 billion FCFA ($479.2m), driven by price increases that followed a government-mandated hike in tobacco taxes at the start of the year. But those same taxes pushed up production costs faster than selling prices, squeezing the gross margin. Net profit fell 18% to 36.2 billion FCFA ($64.7m). The board proposed distributing 38.1 billion FCFA ($68.1m) — more than the year's profit, drawing on retained earnings — leaving almost nothing behind.

SITAB is the only cigarette manufacturer in Ivory Coast, with a market share of around 88%, and is 73% owned by Imperial Brands, the UK tobacco group. It makes Fine, Gauloises Blondes, Mustang and several other brands. The monopoly position gives it pricing power, but that power is being progressively eroded by regulation: excise duties jumped from 49% to 70% in January 2025, and mandatory plain packaging came into force in November 2024.

Volumes fell early in the year after the price increases, recovered by the third quarter, then fell again in the fourth. The full-year picture is one of a company adapting to a tighter regulatory environment while its parent extracts maximum cash.

Key Takeaways

SITAB is one of the most reliably profitable companies on the BRVM, generating returns on equity that few regional peers match, and it has historically paid out almost all of it. That pattern continued in 2025. Imperial Brands, the London-listed parent, uses high-margin African franchises like SITAB as cash machines to fund dividends and debt reduction at the group level — a strategy common among multinational tobacco companies in markets where they hold dominant positions. The regulatory trajectory in Ivory Coast is moving in one direction: higher taxes, plainer packaging, stricter advertising rules. These measures reduce volume over time but also create a barrier to entry that consolidates SITAB's monopoly position, since illicit and imported cigarettes cannot easily fill the gap. GCR Ratings, which rates the company, has assigned a stable outlook, citing SITAB's dominant market position and financial flexibility as offsetting factors. The bigger question for minority shareholders on the BRVM is whether that cash extraction pace leaves enough investment for the company to adapt as the market evolves.

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