Philip Morris International - Q3 2023
October 19, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good day, and welcome to the Philip Morris International third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Today's call is scheduled to last about one hour, including remarks by Philip Morris International Management and the question-and-answer session. In order to ask a question, please press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad at any time. Media representatives on the call will also be invited to ask questions at the conclusion of questions from the investment community. I will now turn the call over to Mr. James Bushnell, Vice President of Investor Relations and Financial Communications. Please go ahead, sir.
James Bushnell (VP of Investor Relations and Financial Communications)
Welcome. Thank you for joining us. Earlier today, we issued a press release containing detailed information on our 2023 third quarter results. The press release is available on our website at pmi.com. A glossary of terms, including the definition for smoke-free products, as well as adjustments, other calculations, and reconciliations to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measures for non-GAAP financial measures cited in this presentation and additional net revenue data are available in Exhibit 99.2 to the company's Form 8-K, dated October 19th, 2023, and on our Investor Relations website. Today's remarks contain forward-looking statements and projections of future results. I direct your attention to the forward-looking and cautionary statements disclosure in today's presentation and press release for a review of the various factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from projections or forward-looking statements. It is now my pleasure to introduce Emmanuel Babeau, our Chief Financial Officer. Over to you, Emmanuel.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you, James, and welcome everyone. We delivered very strong and better-than-expected performance in Q3, driven by IQOS and ZYN. Adjusted diluted EPS grew by an excellent +20% in currency-neutral terms to reach a record quarterly high of $1.67, despite a significant adverse currency impact in the period. Once again, our total volumes were positive, with the Q3 progression of over +2%, positioning us to deliver our third straight year of growth. While not yet in our organic metrics, ZYN continued its exceptional growth, with U.S. volumes up by +66% in Q3 and over +50% year to date, with a substantial increase in category share. Importantly, our IQOS business delivered another strong quarter, with HTU shipment growing +18% in line with the year-to-date trend.
As covered at our recent Investor Day, HTU volumes have excellent unique economics relative to cigarettes, and the +16.5% organic net revenue growth from smoke-free product was a key driver in both our high single-digit organic top-line and double-digit organic operating income growth. Smoke-free products made up over 36% of total net revenue in the quarter as we drive toward our new ambition of over 2/3 by 2030, making us substantially smoke-free. In combustibles, we delivered very robust performance with +6% growth in organic net revenues, strong pricing, and higher category share, despite the impact of the smoker moving to smoke-free product. Our impressive operating income growth drove organic year-on-year margin expansion and a sequential improvement compared to the second quarter.
This includes healthy expansion in the gross margin of our IQOS business, which surpassed combustible in the period and lower than expected commercial costs. Overall, we are pleased to report another strong quarter, and we look forward with confidence to the remainder of the year and beyond. Turning now to the headline numbers. We surpassed $9 billion in quarterly net revenues for the first time, as strong positive volume and continued excellent IQOS momentum supported organic net revenue growth of +9.3%. This organic growth does not include the impressive +22% adjusted ex-currency top line growth of Swedish Match, led by ZYN. Our organic net revenue per unit grew by +7%, driven by the increasing proportion of IQOS HTUs in our sales mix and very firm combustible pricing of +9%.
This positive top line and mix performance drove very strong organic operating income growth of +11.3% and organic margin expansion of +70 basis points. Again, this excludes the exceptional performance of Swedish Match, which is included in our adjusted diluted EPS. We delivered adjusted diluted earnings per share growth of +20.3%, excluding an unfavorable currency impact of $0.17, notably due to the Russian ruble and the balance sheet-related currency impact in Argentina, as disclosed at our recent Investor Day. Sequentially, lower net financing costs were broadly offset by a higher tax rate. Our excellent third quarter, combined with a robust H1, resulted in strong delivery year to date. I want to highlight our volume growth of +1.5%.
Organic net revenue growth of +7.7%, again, reflecting continued dynamic IQOS performance and combustible pricing. In addition, Swedish Match currency-neutral net revenues increased by +18%, excluding accounting reclassifications. Year-to-date, operating income grew by +2.4% organically, despite accentuated margin headwinds and a notable OI decline in the first quarter due to the headwinds covered previously, which are now starting to subside. Combined with outstanding ZYN performance, this resulted in year-to-date currency-neutral adjusted diluted EPS growth of +10.7% to $4.65. This is an excellent performance. Turning now to the full-year outlook, I am pleased to share that following this very strong year-to-date delivery, we are raising our volume, organic sales growth, and currency-neutral adjusted bottom line growth forecast.
First, to volumes, where we increase our outlook to +1% to +1.5% total shipment growth for cigarette and HTUs, despite a lower expectation for the total industry. Within this, we expect to deliver HTU shipment volume within the lower half of our prior 125 billion-130 billion range. While IQOS fundamentals remain strong, this narrowing reflect a further delay to the expected market launch in Taiwan, limited underlying growth in Russia and Ukraine, as well as some uncertainty related to inventory level in the EU, as trade partner adjust to the upcoming HTU flavor ban. For combustible, the resilience of our portfolio is reflected in an updated forecast of a 1%-2% cigarette volume decline. ZYN continues to perform exceptionally with strong adult consumer traction.
Following a further step up in the U.S. volume run rate, we are now increasing our full-year nicotine pouch forecast range to 390 million-410 million cans. Combining the improved volume outlook with robust pricing and continued positive mix, we are narrowing our organic net revenue growth forecast to around +8%, the midpoint of our previous range. As I will come back to shortly, we expect excellent organic OI growth over the second half of the year. Combining this strong profit performance with the continuation of ZYN's phenomenal growth and diligent cost management, allows us to raise our currency neutral adjusted diluted EPS growth forecast to +10% to +10.5%.
This means we now expect double-digit growth for the third year running, and translate into a full year range of $6.05-$6.08, including an estimated unfavorable currency impact of $0.53 at prevailing rates. Last, despite increased currency headwinds, we continue to expect operating cash flow of around $10 billion for the year. This sets us up nicely as we focus on deleveraging towards our target of around 2x adjusted net debt to EBITDA in 2026. Now, let me provide a different view of our forecasted results. As you can see, 2023 has very much been a year of two halves, with a number of accentuated headwinds in H1, as explained in prior quarters, including steep cost inflation. H2 is a different story, and we believe it is more reflective of the underlying trajectory of our business.
First, we expect an accelerated H2 top line with organic growth of around +9%. Second, we expect a significant re-acceleration in profit growth. We continue to expect organic operating income margin expansion in H2, and we are well on track after delivering another quarter of sequential adjusted OI margin improvement in Q3, with margins also expanding organically year-on-year. In H2, we expect strong organic operating income growth of around 10%. For the full year, our expectation remains that organic margin evolution will be towards the lower end of our -50 basis points to -150 basis point range, including the expected technical margin impact of around 40 basis points from third-party arrangement in Indonesia and Ukraine. For Q4, we expect strong operating income growth with broadly stable year-on-year organic margin progression.
This includes the expectation of higher device sales as we accelerate our ILUMA rollout to reach around 50 markets by year-end, complemented by further ILUMA device innovation. This very positive organic OI trajectory in H2 naturally translate into an acceleration in currency neutral adjusted diluted EPS growth, bolstered by Swedish Match. Now, turning back to our results, our total shipment volume increased by +2.2% for Q3 and +1.5% year to date, putting us comfortably on track to deliver our third sequential year of growth. HTU shipment volumes grew by +18% in Q3 to reach 32.5 billion units, driven by continued strong performance in Europe and Japan. Adjusting for inventory movement, including the transition back to sea freight, Q3 adjusted IMS grew by +14.4%.
This includes Europe at +16%, despite heightened competitive activity, notably in Poland, and a more normalized growth rate in Japan of +12%. Excluding Russia and Ukraine, where growth remains limited, our adjusted IMS advanced by a very robust +16%. These growth rates exclude the excellent development of oral nicotine, for which shipment volume grew by +19% in Q3 and +14% year to date on a pro forma basis, including the U.S. growth of ZYN of +66% and +56% respectively. If we were to add the growth of nicotine pouches on a unit basis, our Q3 pro forma smoke-free volume grew by +19.5% and our total volume by +2.5%.
Cigarette volume declined by a modest 0.5% in Q3, with strong performance in Turkey and Egypt, and by 1.3% year to date, reflecting solid category share performance in a resilient category despite robust pricing. I will now walk through the mechanics of our Q3 net revenues. In addition to +2.2% volume growth, pricing contributed +6.2 points of growth as combustibles remained strong and the negative impact on HTU pricing of the annualization of excise tax increases in Japan and Germany, notably moderated. The increasing proportion of HTUs in our business continues to be a consistent top line driver, reflecting higher net revenue per unit. The positive mix impact of HTUs over overall volume growth and pricing are powerful drivers of our transformation and growth.
We expect ZYN to enhance this further as it starts to be included in our organic metrics from mid Q4. Looking now at adjusted operating income, where the $3.7 billion delivered in Q3 is also a record high. I am pleased to report that following peak margin in Q1, our organic growth has accelerated nicely as inflation, supply chain disruption, and ILUMA-related factors continue to moderate and the underlying dynamics of our transformation bear fruits. The Q3 progression is slightly above our 2024-2026 CAGR target of +8% to +10% organic operating income growth, and as I covered earlier, we expect our overall H2 OI growth to be around the top of this range.
This strong operating income growth, in excess of an already healthy top line performance, drove a better than expected organic margin expansion of +70 basis points in the quarter. This was also the first quarter this year where gross margin expanded organically, notably due to lower shipping costs, ILUMA margin improvement, and lower device sales compared to the prior year. SG&A costs were also organically lower as a percentage of net revenue, reflecting a good cost performance and some phasing between the third and fourth quarter. We delivered a further well over $20 million in gross cost efficiencies in Q3, now surpassing our $2 billion target for 2021-2023. We aim to continue this run rate as reflected in our 2024-2026 target of an incremental $2 billion in gross savings.
The Q3 margin currency variance includes a 0.6-point impact from the Argentina balance sheet-related item I mentioned earlier. By its nature, this does not carry forward to future periods. Now, moving to Swedish Match, which is meaningfully accelerating our smoke-free growth trajectory as we progress towards becoming substantially smoke-free by 2030. Swedish Match business delivered excellent adjusted currency neutral net revenue growth of +22% in Q3 and +18% year-to-date. This means that our adjusted pro forma year-to-date top-line growth was 60 basis points higher at +8.3%. Swedish Match strong profitability also enhanced our year-to-date adjusted income margin by +70 basis points.
As we covered at Investor Day, Swedish Match smoke-free portfolio has excellent economics and is already a significant size compared to total PMI, with its product contribution or operating profit before SG&A, to be clearer, approaching one quarter of our total smoke-free business year to date. ZYN remains the key performance driver as it delivered another remarkable U.S. performance with +66% volume growth, reflecting positive momentum across the country. Elsewhere, in smoke-free, recent trends of share gain in U.S. moist snuff, as well as category mix headwind in Scandinavia, broadly continued. We continue to be very pleased with the positive impact of Swedish Match on our company, and I would like to thank the team for delivering such a great performance. Now, let's examine ZYN's recent U.S. performance in more detail.
Exceptional progress continued in Q3, with an increase in 12 months rolling shipment volume growth of +52% compared to Q3 2022, and +14% sequentially. Impressively, ZYN Q3 category volume share grew to 70.8%, which is +4.7 points higher year-on-year and +2.5 points sequentially. Retail value share remains strong at around 76%, highlighting ZYN's premium positioning and superior brand equity. This accelerated growth reflect progressive increase in distribution and a further broad step up in national one-store velocity as the category gains strong traction with adult nicotine user for its convenience and pleasurable experience. Now, focusing on IQOS, starting with user growth. We estimate there were 27.4 million IQOS users as of September 30th.
This represents an increase of 3.7 million users versus one year ago, and 0.2 million compared to Q2 2023. As shown on the right-hand side of the slide, the third quarter of each year typically experiences slower user growth due to the seasonal influences in the calculation. Both new user registration and device sales to legal age smokers continue to advance strongly and at levels broadly in line with Q2, when users grew by 1.4 million sequentially. Also, as in prior years, we expect a substantial acceleration in user growth in the fourth quarter. Moving now to IQOS in the Europe region, where our third quarter HTU share increased by +1.3 points to 8.6% of total cigarette and HTU industry volume.
Continued share gains into the growing take-up of ILUMA, which is available to over 80% of IQOS users in the region. In addition to Q3 launches in Denmark and the U.K., ILUMA was launched in Poland, which, like Japan, is a market with high competitive activity. We look forward to driving its performance here over the coming quarters. While sequential share is, as usual, optically affected by the seasonality of the cigarette category, adjusted IMS volumes continue to exhibit robust sequential growth and reached a record high on the four-quarter moving average. This reflects strong year-on-year growth of +16% in Q3, despite limited growth in Ukraine. We expect strong IMS volume growth to continue in Q4, with a corresponding increase in market share.
In the EU, the majority of member states have transposed a delegated directive, withdrawing the heated tobacco product exemption from the characterizing flavor ban into national law. The ban in the EU market will be effective as of October 23rd, and the remaining markets are expected to adopt in 2024. As previously mentioned, we are adjusting our HT portfolio as required, in line with this transposition, and while short-term volatility is possible, including in year-end trade inventories, we do not expect significant change in the structural growth of the category. In Japan, IQOS ILUMA celebrated its second anniversary of the national launch in September and continues to exhibit strong growth due to excellent conversion, consumer satisfaction, and retention rates. Adjusted total tobacco share for our HTU brands increased by +3 points in Q3 year-over-year to 26.6%.
Importantly, adjusted in-market sales volume again grew sequentially on the four-quarter moving average, reaching over 10 billion units for the first time in Q3 2023 as IQOS outgrew the heated tobacco category. In addition to this excellent consumer trend, our Q3 shipment to Japan also benefited from further switching back to sea freight during the quarter. This shift is now substantially progressed, and we expect a more normalized rate of HTU shipment in Q4. Our premium price TEREA HTUs and mainstream price SENTIA HTUs continued to grow individually and in aggregate, reaching Q3 HTU shares of around 18% and 8% respectively, despite the impact of seasonality. Our Japan city shares also continue to progress, with a number reaching over 30%. We continue to see a long runway of growth in Japan over the coming quarters.
In addition to strong IQOS gains in developed countries, we continue to see very promising growth in low and middle-income markets. This slide highlights a selection of Q3 key city IQOS share across markets in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We see notable ongoing success in Egypt, with Cairo off-take share up +3.5 points to almost 9%, and in Santo Domingo, as our leading Latin America city, with off-take share around 8%. Most promising is a 3.1% off-take share in urban Jakarta, where IQOS is only available via the IQOS CLUB members program. We continue to see robust off-take volume growth across this important future markets, despite seasonal effect on sequential share metrics.
I'd like to spend a moment now on combustibles, where our portfolio delivered strong organic net revenue growth of +6.2% in Q3 and +5.6% year to date. This reflects another strong quarter of pricing, with notable contribution from Germany and Indonesia. With better than expected pricing in Q3 of +9% and +8.6% year to date, we now forecast a full year increase of +8% to +8.5%. Our cigarette category share grew by +0.6 points in Q3 and +0.3 points year to date. This reflects notable contribution from Egypt, Poland and Turkey, resulting in only modest volume declines.
Our leadership in combustibles helps to maximize switching to smoke-free products, and we have fully achieved our ongoing objective of stable category share over the last two years, despite the impact of IQOS cannibalization. This combustible share performance, combined with the structural growth of IQOS, supports robust overall market share gains. We captured +0.9 points of international cigarette and HTU share in Q3 and +0.7 points year to date. As covered at Investor Day, our superior share of smoke-free product give us a formidable platform for sustainable market share gains with superior unit economics. Now, let me update you briefly on our exciting innovation and expansion activities, which will be critical as we aim to reach over 2/3 smoke-free net revenue by 2030, including 60 markets over 50% and 40 markets of over 75%.
As we covered at Investor Day, the global rollout of IQOS ILUMA continues. We launched ILUMA in four markets in Q3, reaching 27 markets in total, which represent around 75% of our IQOS business by volume. ILUMA continues to generate excellent growth, with upgrades from existing user and new user acquisition. With a further six markets launch already this month, we expect ILUMA to be present in around 50 markets by year-end and to essentially complete the rollout next year. I've also mentioned during Investor Day, superior tobacco taste is critical to our ongoing success, and we are further exploring complex and new taste spaces to enhance our tobacco flavor experience. On the other end of the consumer preference spectrum, we will be offering zero tobacco consumable for non-tobacco flavor discovery under the LEVIA brand.
Just as nicotine pouches are an evolution from snus to make the oral category relevant to more adult smokers, LEVIA is a similar non-tobacco evolution for IQOS as we broaden our offering to increase switching away from combustibles. The U.S. represents the most significant opportunity to drive accelerated smoke-free growth at both the top and bottom line. We are continuing to invest behind ZYN and readying our organizational and commercial capabilities for the launch of IQOS in Q2 2024, and a scaled up rollout with ILUMA once authorized. We remain on track to file for IQOS ILUMA's PMTA and MRTPA this month. The international expansion of nicotine pouches remain a key mid to long-term focus, notably for ZYN, as the world's leading brand. During the third quarter, we relaunched ZYN in Switzerland, and following positive regulatory developments, rolled out ZYN in Finland. Moving now to sustainability.
Addressing the product health impact of combustible product by switching adult smokers to smoke-free products, which are designed and marketed for adult use, remains our most critical priority. This transformation is at the core of our strategy as we become a more sustainable business with accelerated growth and returns over time. With regard to tackling climate change, I am delighted to report that the Science Based Targets initiative validated our forest, land, and agriculture emission reduction target, a recognition achieved by very few companies. We pledge to reduce this absolute scope three emission by 33% by 2030, which is significant given that scope three remain the most challenging aspect of any company's decarbonization strategy. In September, almost 20,000 employees in over 60 countries participated in World Cleanup Day, showcasing our commitment to raising awareness around littering as part of our wider strategy to reduce post-consumer waste.
We have long expressed our support for more rigor in sustainability-related reporting, and welcome recent moves towards greater consistency in standards and a strong governance framework. As part of our ongoing work, we provided responses to consultation requests from the International Sustainability Standards Board to help shape the development of their work plan and update to the SASB standards. PMI continues to be recognized by organizations such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, as a leader in non-financial reporting. We have much more to share on our sustainability efforts and transformation. Jacek will be presenting at the COP CEO Investor Forum in New York on November the 14th, and the event is open to all those who would like to attend. To conclude today's presentation, we continue to deliver sustainable growth through our transformation.
The powerful trajectory of our smoke-free business give us confidence in strong full-year results built on volume growth, positive mix, pricing, and cost management. Considering the headwinds faced, notably in the first part of the year, we believe this speaks strongly to the fundamentals of our growth model. Notably, the outstanding performance of IQOS and ZYN continues, further enhancing our position as the global smoke-free champion. We have exciting plans to accelerate our smoke-free future in both the U.S., the largest smoke-free market, and internationally. We are confident in our 2024-2026 CAGR target of +6% to +8% organic top-line growth, +8% to +10% organic operating income growth, and +9% to +11% currency neutral Adjusted EPS growth.
We also have a clear guiding objective with our new ambition to be substantially smoke-free by net revenue in 2030, as another key milestone on our journey toward a smoke-free future. And finally, with our latest dividend raise in September, we have delivered 16 years of continuous dividend increase since our 2008 spin, despite the ups and downs of economic and currency cycle. This translate to a cumulative 183% increase and CAGR of 77.2% since 2008, with an annualized dividend of $5.20. As this demonstrate, our commitment to shareholder return through progressive dividend remain steadfast. Thank you very much, and we are now extremely happy to answer your questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will now conduct the question-and-answer portion of the conference. Again, in order to ask a question or make a comment, please press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. In the interest of fairness and time, we ask that participants keep to a maximum of two questions each. If time allows, follow-up questions may be taken. You may rejoin the queue by again pressing star one. Our first question will come from Vivien Azer with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Vivien Azer (Managing Director)
Hi, good morning.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Morning, Vivien.
Vivien Azer (Managing Director)
So I'd like to start with ZYN, please. Clearly a very impressive result with continued acceleration in the top line. Emmanuel, you talked about distribution gains, so I was hoping you could just level set, you know, how much more runway do you see from a distribution standpoint? You know, certainly this remains a velocity driven story, I would think. So that would be question one, and then the follow-up will just be on the margins, which came in way ahead of expectations. You've called out very strong cost management. That's clearly apparent, and I'd love to hear your perspective on the durability of the current margin level for ZYN, please. Thank you.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you, Vivien. So on ZYN, and, of course, you know, every quarter will bring its new load of news. And I think we have been seeing in Q3, another great quarter of acceleration in the velocity. That means that, you know, where the brand is already even nicely present, we see the consumer of tech accelerating. It just show that these products are becoming more relevant for a growing number of adult user, and that's great news.
There is also the geographical dimension, on which we elaborated at the time of our Investor Day, and which is showing that while the brand has a certain level of presence on the western part of the U.S., doesn't mean that it's not going to grow it further, but it's, of course, bigger than the rest of the country. There seem to be a trajectory that is saying that the rest of the country is going to adopt it progressively, and that is indeed giving also a nice, I would say, trajectory on further growth in the coming quarters and years, of course. You know, we talk here about probably years of very nice growth.
So it's great that we have behind ZYN, two engine, which is really, where the brand is already, you know, with the biggest presence. We don't see any decrease in the consumer adoption, and we see increase, what we call the velocity. And we see progressively, I think as well, quarter after quarter, this geographical momentum building up, building up, as expected. Now, on the margin, yes, it's true that this growth of ZYN is extremely positive when it comes to margin. Of course, we are going to continue to invest behind this growth potential in the U.S., and we will put the necessary commercial resources to make sure that we maximize the growth potential.
But I said it, ZYN is really best in class in terms of growth margin for our product at the group level. I'm talking about ZYN in the U.S., but, you know, global nicotine pouch enjoy nice margin, but ZYN in the U.S. is best in class. And that means, of course, that growing ZYN is an excellent news for top line, but also for bottom line. And I think that in the growth of the adjusted earnings per share over the quarter, this is absolutely visible.
Vivien Azer (Managing Director)
Thank you.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question will come from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs.
Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)
Thank you. Good morning.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Morning, Bonnie.
Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)
I had a question on your HTU shipment volume for the year. You know, you mentioned you're now expecting to come in within the lower half of your guidance, and then you highlighted a few reasons for this, including, you know, the uncertainty related to inventory levels in Europe, given the upcoming flavor ban. So could you give us a sense of maybe where inventory, inventory levels are at right now? And then, you know, maybe how many quarters you expect some of this unwind to happen. And then, you know, just thinking about the trade, you know, is this being offset in any way with, you know, I'm just thinking about combustible cig inventories or, you know, really, how is the trade responding to this, this ban?
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Yes, Bonnie, so I think it's of course something on which we will be able to elaborate once we have been landing the year after the ban put in place on where the country are implementing it at the end of October. It's not the case in all country. One of the question we have is, as with some reduction, you know, with some SKUs, does it mean that they are globally going to reduce the level of inventory, and can this impact the level of shipment toward the year end? So I think we're flying that because, of course, we continue to be with the view that this ban should not ultimately bring major disruption.
And we've been elaborating on many occasions on why we think that this ban is not going to ultimately change the dynamic in the category. But it's true that we have some question mark on the landing for the reason I've just been describing on the level of inventory. That's why we are mentioning it, to make sure that we are as clear as possible on the possible, I would say, temporary effect that this could generate. Now, when I look at our shipment for the year, so we are clarifying the landing area.
When I look at the 2023 performance versus 2022 performance, that will mean, even in the low end of the bracket, an acceleration in terms of growth versus the growth that we experienced in 2022, in terms of incremental billion of sticks being sold. And of course, shipments are, as we know, what we are selling. What is probably more important is the consumer uptake, and here, frankly, we see the momentum continuing with no change. And I think the Q3 number, where we have seasonality, but when we look at Q3, what we expect for Q4, we are very much with the same strong 15%-16% IMS growth. And we are in line with what we have experienced last year. So that shows...
And by the way, it's a percentage on a higher base, so in fact, in volume, that means that the volume growth is higher. So we don't see any change in the momentum. We see a lot of strength in the growth. And that's visible in the volume, in the market share, that we are reporting today with Q3.
Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)
Okay, that's helpful. Then just in terms of another question, I just wanted to ask on, you know, on your new IQOS users in the quarter, it did come in a bit light. You know, you highlighted that this is, you know, normal quarterly seasonal trends. So maybe could you talk through that a bit further for us? And then, you know, maybe what other drivers might be impacting this, and essentially, how much visibility do you have, you know, in terms of Q4? You mentioned that you expect a substantial acceleration in user growth this quarter. So just kind of wanted to verify what you're seeing so far in October, gives you that confidence, and, you know, is it realistic to assume, you know, a typical 1 million average quarterly run rate moving forward? Thanks.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Sure, Bonnie. So actually, last year we were flat in terms of user acquisition. So we're doing better this year than last year.
Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)
Okay
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
In terms of user evolution. And I think we are in line with what we experienced in 2021, if I remember well. I think we, we've been showing the numbers. So that's a typical pattern for Q3, which is due to the methodology on, you know, how we calculate the user growth. And I think we have today, as I said, you know, the element of the momentum that we are seeing on people buying the device, on people registering that is pointing to the fact that we see the same momentum, and that there is no change. And last year, we finished the year with a strong user growth, and we target to do the same this year.
So, I have to say, it's remarkably stable in the strength, if I can use this expression. And as I said, you know, we could be, at the end of the day, in fact, growing in shipments, and in IMS volume more, than last year. So if the percentage is about the same, again, the base is being higher, it means that we're gonna increase in term of volume, differential year on year.
Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)
All right. Thank you.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you!
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from Gaurav Jain with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Gaurav Jain (Head of EU Chemicals, EU Forestry Paper and Packaging, Global Tobacco, and Cannabis)
Hi, good morning.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Good morning, Gaurav.
Gaurav Jain (Head of EU Chemicals, EU Forestry Paper and Packaging, Global Tobacco, and Cannabis)
Hi. So I have a question on the U.S. cigar side of things. So, you know, clearly the FDA sent this rulemaking process to ban flavored cigars to the OMB. So first, how will you address that? And secondly, if I look at the reported numbers on cigars, it seems that the revenue had a pretty steep decline this quarter. Can you help us understand what's happening there?
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
So on the trend, we've been increasing price, and the cigar had been below a certain threshold for a bit of time, and we decided to move above this threshold, which was $1 for two. And there is a time for adaptation, and that explains why on volume we are impacted this year. But I don't think it reflect what's going to happen on the long term, where we continue to have very good brands and with a lot of consumer support.
Frankly, on the flavor, will you allow me not to speculate? I mean, I don't know exactly what the plan is, what it's gonna mean, how long it would take, what is decided, and again, nobody actually knows what could be decided, how long it's gonna take to be implemented. So, I'm not going to speculate at that stage on what would be our answer and what we would do, because I'm not gonna be relevant on anything that could be seen at that stage.
Gaurav Jain (Head of EU Chemicals, EU Forestry Paper and Packaging, Global Tobacco, and Cannabis)
Sure. Thank you. Then my second question is on FY 2024 EPS, and what's the base we should use to project that? Because I heard in comment that the Argentinian balance sheet revaluation impact, which is about $0.06, that will not recur in FY 2024, so we should add that to FY 2023 EPS. And then could you also just comment on Russia exposure and the [CLCPS]?
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Yeah. So on this is a technical comment on Argentina, Gaurav, you're absolutely right. You know, this is a Forex impact that is a kind of one-off, if you want, because that is impacting this year. But next year, we're not starting with a base on our profit that is decreased by that. It's just something that you need to book on your balance sheet exposure, but when it's taken, it's taken. I mean, of course, depending on the evolution of the Argentine peso in the future. But I don't have anything to say at that stage. I think I just wanted to clarify this technical impact. On Russia, frankly, versus when we met three weeks ago, there is nothing new to report on the Russian situation.
This is a market where, of course, we are being very significantly impacted on the profits reported in dollars because of the very strong weakening of the Russian ruble versus the dollar. That is one of the, if not the biggest impact this year on Forex. That is, of course, I would say, mechanically reducing our exposure to Russia in our profit. That's, that's mechanical. And, we are, as we already said, you know, we are seeing very limited growth in Russia. That is a market where, as we've been saying, we've been reducing our commercial activity and that's not a market where we're investing, and that is translating, of course, on the performance of this market.
Gaurav Jain (Head of EU Chemicals, EU Forestry Paper and Packaging, Global Tobacco, and Cannabis)
Thank you so much.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you, Gaurav.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from Pamela Kaufman with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Pamela Kaufman (Executive Director and Packaged Food and Tobacco Equity Analyst)
Hi, good morning.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Hi, Pam. Good morning.
Pamela Kaufman (Executive Director and Packaged Food and Tobacco Equity Analyst)
I have a question on the combustibles business. It's been exceeding expectations, and you've taken up your guidance for volumes on the combustible strength. Can you talk about what's driving the performance in this category, despite the acceleration in pricing growth?
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Sure, Pam, happy to do that. So yes, combustible is being resilient. We have a decline, but it's a modest decline in Q3. Let's be clear, this is driven by a few markets where we see a nice share gain. One is Turkey, the other one is Egypt. As you can imagine, they are not markets with great profitability per stick. So let's be very clear, we have a nice performance on combustible, on volume, to some extent on revenue. All the great work that we are doing now on increasing OI and growing margin is, you know, first and foremost, driven by our smoke-free product. IQOS first, ZYN second, and not by the CC. So yes, great performance when it comes to volumes, great performance versus, you know, the decline that we may have seen in the past few years.
Good impact on revenue. We've been doing good on price increase as well. But remember, that's a category on which we've seen a lot of inflation on our cost, and part of the growth is generated by market with low profitability.
Pamela Kaufman (Executive Director and Packaged Food and Tobacco Equity Analyst)
Thank you. And then on,
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you.
Pamela Kaufman (Executive Director and Packaged Food and Tobacco Equity Analyst)
ZYN, when do you expect to hear a decision from the FDA on ZYN's PMTA applications? And how are you thinking about the prospects for ZYN flavor approvals, considering the FDA has recently issued unfavorable decisions around flavored ENDS products?
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Look, we have discussed that three weeks ago, and there is nothing new on the PMTA. We don't know what's gonna be the timeline, it's at the discretion of the FDA, and we see that a lot of things are taking a significant time for decisions to be taken. Let me make a couple of comments on this PMTA process nevertheless. The first one is that we have with our smokeless product, with General, an MRTPA of Level 1. So the FDA has been recognized that this product are representing a reduced risk versus combustible cigarettes, and we're very clear as benefit claim. We believe that by nature, this product should be considered as, you know, equally good, if not better.
And we believe that they have the potential to really convince 1 million of smokers to move away from combustible cigarettes to have a better way of consuming nicotine. So we are really hopeful that the FDA will really take that as a very important element, and that it's important to make this product available for nicotine user in the U.S. Now, on the flavor, because I think that was probably one of your questions, you know, for the same reason, we believe it is important that the consumer has the choice of flavor, if it is a reason for them to move away from combustible cigarette to this better product.
Having said that, we have the example of a ban in on flavor in California, and the reality is that there was an adjustment during a couple of months, and then the growth resumed without flavor in California, and we are today very, very significantly, I think we are close to 30% above the pre-ban level in California. So it shows that these products are extremely attractive and resonate with the nicotine user, with the smokers, and with other nicotine user beyond the flavor, which is very good news.
Pamela Kaufman (Executive Director and Packaged Food and Tobacco Equity Analyst)
Great. Thank you.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you, Pam.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Smith with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Matt Smith (Director of Food and Tobacco)
Hi, good morning, Emmanuel.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Morning, Matt.
Matt Smith (Director of Food and Tobacco)
If we take the full year organic profit margin guidance to down 150 basis points or so, and the year-to-date performance along with your commentary around kind of a flattish year-over-year performance in the fourth quarter, can you talk about some of the factors in the fourth quarter? I understand there's a lot of crosswinds here, but you get the benefit of Swedish Match rolling into the organic base. And then, you mentioned you've completed the shift to back to sea freight for HTU consumables in Japan. So can you talk about some of the headwinds to margin in the fourth quarter? Maybe some detail around your expectations around the incremental ILUMA launches or any other factors would be helpful.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Sure. So indeed, there are gonna be some mixed impact in Q4, and notably on the devices as we are rolling out ILUMA in a significant number of new markets. We are also launching some new innovation in some markets on the ILUMA device. That's gonna generate, I would say, a significantly accelerated activity on our device sales, and that is having a negative impact on the margin. So that's gonna be clearly one element. Then on top of that, there will be certainly some investment during the fourth quarter, and that is having an impact on the margin. And then you can have some mix coming from geographies and then other mix element.
But that is what is today behind the guidance of around flat, and it doesn't mean that, you know, it can be gonna be a bit positive. But today, we are seeing this around stability situation for our OI margin year-on-year organically for Q4.
Matt Smith (Director of Food and Tobacco)
Thank you then, for that. Just as a follow-up, when you talk about investments in the fourth quarter, should we think of that as a sequential step up in investment relative to the level in the third quarter, or is that more of a year-over-year higher investment compared to the fourth quarter of 2023? I'll leave it there.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
I think you should expect, certainly continuation of, you know, significant level of investment as we are accompanying the growth of our, star product, IQOS and ZYN. That should probably mean, quarter-on-quarter, I would say, sequential, increase, and still a significant growth, versus last year.
Matt Smith (Director of Food and Tobacco)
Thank you for that.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you.
Matt Smith (Director of Food and Tobacco)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from Owen Bennett with Jefferies.
Owen Bennett (Senio VP of Equity Research)
Morning, Emmanuel. Hope all well.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Morning, Owen.
Owen Bennett (Senio VP of Equity Research)
I just wanted to ask also, ZYN, very, very strong in the U.S., but wanted to ask about pouches ex-U.S., so volumes only flat versus 2Q for Scandi and ex-Scandi. And you mentioned you also had relaunches in Switzerland and Finland during the quarter. So I was just wondering how you see the near term outlook for volumes ex-U.S. Do you expect any meaningful acceleration over the next several quarters? And then a second question linked to that, there's some increasing chatter now that the EU is looking to potentially ban pouches as part of the new TPD. Does this impact how you think about investing in the space ex-U.S. near term? Thank you.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you, Owen. Yeah, so you know, we have this situation in Scandinavia on nicotine pouch, where the product is already present, mainly in Sweden, where it's a nicely growing market. That's not where we enjoy the biggest market share. So we are, you know, globally, year to date, growing on a nicotine pouch in Sweden, but they are not, we're not talking about big volumes here, as we have our strong leadership in Sweden on snus. Outside Scandinavia, we are just at the beginning, so yes, we are launching, so we explained that we've been launching in Switzerland, Finland as well, you know, in the Nordics. There will be more market to come.
Now, it's gonna be, and hopefully nice, but it's gonna be small versus what we see in the U.S. You see what I mean? So it's gonna be difficult to see, given the strengths, that we are seeing in the U.S., to see volume outside the U.S. showing, you know, their strengths. Now, yes, it's gonna add very nicely additional numbers, but again, it's not gonna be huge compared to the U.S. We'll see, you know, with TPD, if there is any decision taken around nicotine pouch.
Of course, if there is anything decided that we, in, on that respect, which we don't know today, that will influence the way we invest on, on this category in the EU, but frankly, at that stage, it's too early to say, because we don't know what's gonna be discussed, if anything, on that one, and, and, and therefore we'll, we'll see.
Owen Bennett (Senio VP of Equity Research)
Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Yeah, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our last question will come from Andrei Condrea with UBS.
Andrei Condrea (Equity Research Analyst and Associate Director of Beverages and Tobacco)
Hi. Good morning, Emmanuel.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Hi, Andrei.
Andrei Condrea (Equity Research Analyst and Associate Director of Beverages and Tobacco)
Just one from me, please. And I know it's, it's a bit of a topic du jour, but the GLP-1 drug, obviously there's been talk about it having anti-addictive properties. Do you think this could be an issue for PMI in the long term, rather? Thank you.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Well, frankly, I mean, I've been, you know, hearing things about that. I mean, I know what the assumption is, everybody going to be under GLP-1, and therefore, you know, they're going to drive massive change in consumer behavior? And, you know, I'm not even able to tell you what would be the impact for somebody who is a nicotine user and is going to take GLP-1. I'm not sure we have any serious study on human behavior on that that is going to say that. So first of all, you know, I don't know how broad the usage of this medicine as drug is gonna be. Second, I don't know what's gonna be the, you know, potential impact so, I'm not sure that today we can say anything relevant on, and that makes sense on, on that topic, frankly.
Andrei Condrea (Equity Research Analyst and Associate Director of Beverages and Tobacco)
No, that makes sense. Thank you very much.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and there are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back to Emmanuel for closing remarks.
James Bushnell (VP of Investor Relations and Financial Communications)
Hi, this is James Bushnell, Vice President of Investor Relations. That concludes our call today. Thank you again for joining us. If you have any follow-up questions, please contact the Investor Relations team. Thank you again, and have a great day.
Emmanuel Babeau (CFO)
Thank you. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Operator (participant)
This does conclude today's call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.