Pub­licly list­ed cig­a­rette man­u­fac­tur­er West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny (Wit­co) yes­ter­day re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $34.37 mil­lion for the six months end­ed June 30, 2025, a 56.8 per cent de­cline com­pared to the $79.71 mil­lion the com­pa­ny earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

Wit­co gen­er­at­ed rev­enue of $190.69 mil­lion for the pe­ri­od from Jan­u­ary 1 to June 30, 2025, a re­duc­tion of 25.3 per cent com­pared to the $255.42 mil­lion the com­pa­ny sold in the first six months of its 2024 fi­nan­cial year.

De­spite the re­duc­tion in prof­its and rev­enue for the six-month pe­ri­od, the com­pa­ny’s chair, In­grid Lash­ley, said, “How­ev­er, we are en­cour­aged by the se­quen­tial im­prove­ment over Q1 2025, un­der­pinned by fo­cused ex­e­cu­tion across both our do­mes­tic and ex­port mar­kets. This up­ward mo­men­tum demon­strates the ear­ly im­pact of our con­sumer-first, mul­ti-cat­e­go­ry strat­e­gy and the ef­fec­tive­ness of our tac­ti­cal ex­e­cu­tion.”

Lash­ley said Wit­co is tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tions to strength­en its foun­da­tion and dri­ve fu­ture growth while max­imis­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­no­va­tion and port­fo­lio op­ti­mi­sa­tion to rapid­ly re­spond to con­sumer needs.

“As we build a new foun­da­tion for Wit­co in 2025, our op­er­a­tions and vol­ume ex­pec­ta­tions re­flect in­dus­try re­align­ment. While mind­ful of mar­ket volatil­i­ty, we re­main stead­fast in our strate­gic di­rec­tion—in­vest­ing in ini­tia­tives that re­in­force our core, dri­ve in­no­va­tion, and de­liv­er sus­tain­able val­ue for all stake­hold­ers,” Lash­ley said.

The di­rec­tors rec­om­mend­ed an in­ter­im div­i­dend of $0.10 per or­di­nary share, which will be paid on Sep­tem­ber 5 to share­hold­ers on record at the close of busi­ness on Au­gust 19. The reg­is­ter of share­hold­ers will be closed on Au­gust 20 and 21, 2025 for the pro­cess­ing of the trans­fers.