West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny (Wit­co), yes­ter­day re­port­ed af­ter tax prof­it of $108.65 mil­lion for the nine months end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, 27.3 per cent less than the $149.45 mil­lion the Champs Fleurs-based to­bac­co pro­duc­er de­clared for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

Wit­co's rev­enue slumped by 18.3 per cent to $382.86 mil­lion for pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, a de­cline of 18.3 per cent.

In her chair's re­view, In­grid Lash­ley, said de­spite im­prove­ments in the com­pa­ny's ex­port rev­enues in the third quar­ter of $3.1 mil­lion or 10.5 per cent, the de­cline in rev­enue de­cline com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2023 was due to low­er do­mes­tic rev­enue "pri­mar­i­ly due to changes in con­sumer pref­er­ence and a fo­cus on low­er-priced of­fers."

She said, as a re­sult, the com­pa­ny's pri­or­i­ty is to en­sure its val­ue propo­si­tion con­tin­ues to ap­peal to con­sumers across the port­fo­lio.

Lash­ley said since the launch of its va­p­ing brand, VUSE, the per­for­mance to date shows pos­i­tive re­sults of 18 per cent growth quar­ter on quar­ter which demon­strates the ac­cep­tance of this prod­uct and its po­ten­tial for sus­tain­abil­i­ty in port­fo­lio growth and con­tri­bu­tion to pos­i­tive per­for­mance.

"Es­tab­lish­ing our­selves as a mul­ti-cat­e­go­ry busi­ness aligns with our strate­gic goal of en­sur­ing busi­ness re­silience. By di­ver­si­fy­ing our prod­uct of­fer­ings and tap­ping in­to emerg­ing mar­kets, we are po­si­tion­ing the com­pa­ny for long-term com­pet­i­tive­ness, re­duc­ing re­liance on tra­di­tion­al rev­enue streams and en­hanc­ing our abil­i­ty to adapt to chang­ing con­sumer pref­er­ences," the Wit­co chair said. She said the com­pa­ny's healthy cash­flows will sup­port a div­i­dend pay­out that ac­knowl­edges the con­tri­bu­tions to its share­hold­ers, adding that it is im­por­tant to main­tain the com­mit­ment to the com­pa­ny's share­hold­ers by en­hanc­ing share­hold­er val­ue.

"This re­flects our con­fi­dence in the long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty of our busi­ness and our on­go­ing ef­forts to ad­dress cur­rent chal­lenges," ac­cord­ing to Lash­ley.