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Text: During our call today, unless otherwise stated, we're comparing results to the same period in 2020.
Future dividend payments and share repurchases remain subject to the discretion of Altria's board.
Altria reports its financial results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
Today's call will contain various operating results on both a reported and adjusted basis.
Adjusted results exclude special items that affect comparisons with reported results.
Finally, all references in today's remarks to tobacco consumers or consumers within a specific tobacco category or segment refer to existing adult tobacco consumers 21 years of age or older.
Altria delivered outstanding results in 2021 across our businesses, including strong financial performance, progress toward our vision and advancements in our ESG efforts.
First, Altria grew its 2021 adjusted diluted earnings per share by 5.7% driven in part by the resiliency of our cigarette, cigar and moist smokeless tobacco businesses.
Additionally, we returned more than $8.1 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
This total represents the third largest single year cash return in Altria's history and the largest annual return since 2002.
We have continued to make progress toward our vision of responsibly leading the transition of adult smokers to a smoke-free future.
Our teams took several steps forward in 2021, including accelerating the retail share growth of on!
and further enhancing the capabilities to expand heated tobacco and other new U.S. tobacco products.
Advancing the science, research and development behind our smoke-free products, advocating for tobacco harm reduction by encouraging the FDA and other stakeholders to address the widely held nicotine misperceptions in society and we made excellent strides in establishing a best-in-class consumer engagement system to support smoker transition to smoke-free products.
Our system leverages robust transactional data and our advanced analytic capabilities to engage with consumers at the point of purchase.
Finally, some of our achievements across our responsibility focus areas,included publishing six corporate responsibility reports, summarizing our progress in critical areas, such as harm reduction and underage prevention and publishing our inaugural task force on climate-related financial disclosures report.
We were recognized for the second consecutive year with a AA rating from CDP for climate and water stewardship.
And we advanced our internal talent and cultural goals, embraced workplace flexibility and embedded inclusion and diversity considerations within our performance review process to hold our leaders accountable.
We're excited to share more about our responsibility efforts and our consumer engagement system next month at CAGNY.
2021 was a dynamic year for the U.S. tobacco industry and total industry volumes were influenced by several factors, including pandemic-induced shifts in consumer purchasing behavior and tobacco usage occasions, a continued trend toward smoke-free alternatives and an evolving regulatory and legislative landscape.
Despite year-over-year volatility due to pandemic-related factors, total tobacco volume trends remained stable.
In fact, we estimate that overall tobacco space volumes have decreased by 0.3% annualized for the past two years and by 0.8% over the last five years on a compounded annual basis.
Diving deeper, total estimated equivalized volumes for smoke-free products in the U.S. grew to 3.8 billion equivalized units in 2021 and represented approximately 24% of the total tobacco space.
We estimate the year-over-year increases in smoke-free volumes were driven by the e-vapor category, which result -- resumed its growth after a temporary pause in 2020 and on!
nicotine pouches, which continue to grow rapidly from a small base.
2021 smoke-free volumes also benefited from the geographic expansion of IQOS in the heated tobacco category, but we're pressured by modest declines in the MST category due to shifts in consumer purchasing behavior and movement to other smoke-free categories.
And in combustibles, volume declined to approximately 11.8 billion equivalized units driven by several factors, which Sal will discuss later in his remarks.
Turning to our smoke-free product portfolio.
We're excited by the exceptional performance of on!
retail share of oral tobacco increased by nearly a full share point sequentially, reaching 3.9 share points for the fourth quarter and nearly doubling its share over the past six months.
These strong results were primarily driven by an increase in multi can purchases.
As of the end of the year, on!
was available for sale in approximately 117,000 U.S. retail stores.
nicotine pouch category reached a total oral tobacco retail share of 17.9 percentage points in the fourth quarter, growing 7.4 share points year over year.
We're encouraged that on!
represented more than one-third of this growth and the brand is proving to be a highly competitive product in the space.
Our premarket tobacco applications for the entire on!
portfolio remained pending with the FDA and we believe that the FDA should determine that the marketing of these products is appropriate for the protection of public health.
We are actively working on modified risk tobacco product applications for on!
and expect to submit these applications to the FDA by the end of this year.
We believe an MRTP claim would be an impactful point of differentiation for the brand and an important tool in educating and ultimately transitioning smokers to less harmful products.
In heated tobacco, our teams made excellent progress with IQOS in the Northern Virginia market, with Marlboro HeatSticks achieving a 1.9% retail share of the cigarette category in stores with distribution for the month of October.
Unfortunately, PM USA had to remove IQOS from the market in November due to the International Trade Commission's importation ban and cease and desist orders.
PMI is responsible for IQOS manufacturing and we have been in contact regarding product availability.
At the present time, we do not expect to have access to IQOS devices or Marlboro HeatSticks in 2022.
However, we remain focused on returning IQOS to the market as soon as possible.
Our teams are actively working on reentry plans and we expect to be ready to bring IQOS back to U.S. consumers when available.
Our agreement with PMI contemplates disruptions, such as those caused by the ITC orders and requires the parties to negotiate in good faith to amend the agreement appropriately.
In the second quarter of 2020, we disclosed two milestones in our IQOS agreement with PMI necessary for PM USA to maintain its exclusive license and distribution rights for IQOS in the U.S. and to earn the renewal option for an additional five-year term.
The initial five-year term does not expire until April of 2024, but we believe that PM USA has already met these milestones based on the strong performance of IQOS in the Charlotte and Northern Virginia markets.
PMI has communicated that it disagrees with our position.
We expect to continue discussing these matters with PMI.
We firmly believe that heated tobacco products can play an important role in U.S. harm reduction and we are continuing our efforts to support the category's growth.
We have gained significant knowledge from our IQOS commercialization efforts, which we expect to use going forward.
Our teams learned how to educate U.S. smokers on a brand-new tobacco category and how to effectively support their transition journey to smoke-free alternatives.
We demonstrated improved performance in each successive market and gained valuable knowledge on leveraging MRTP claims to transition smokers.
Additionally, we have built a robust post-market surveillance system, all of which we believe will position us to successfully achieve our objective of moving beyond smoking.
Moving to the e-vapor category.
The 2021 Monitoring the Future study was recently released and the data showed positive improvements in underage usage trends.
Both underage use of nicotine vaping products and JUUL specifically show continued signs of decline.
The latest data shows that JUUL underage usage is down by 70% from 2019, with total underage nicotine vaping down 27% over the same period.
We are encouraged by the progress, but more still needs to be done and we remain committed to continuing our work to reduce underage use of all tobacco products.
Turning to the regulatory environment.
The FDA is currently weighing several decisions that we believe will shape the future of harm reduction in the U.S. In the e-vapor category, the FDA has issued marketing denial orders for many e-vapor PMTAs, predominantly, applications for open systems and flavored e-liquids.
These denial orders have resulted in significant litigation across the country.
In the meantime, PMTAs for most leading e-vapor products, including JUUL, are still on an FDA review.
The FDA granted its first e-vapor market order last year for the tobacco variant of a cigar-like product.
The FDA has not reached a final decision for that manufacturer's menthol variant, but did deny its submissions for its other flavored cartridges.
In oral tobacco, PMTAs for the leading oral nicotine pouch products including on!
, remain pending with the FDA.
Last year, the FDA granted the first market authorizations among innovative oral tobacco products for our Verve discs and chews in the flavors of Green Mint and Blue Mint.
These were also the first flavored product authorizations for newly deemed tobacco products.
Additionally, MRTP applications previously submitted for Copenhagen Snuff and competitive snus products remain in FDA review.
Finally, in combustibles, the FDA has stated that they are on track to issue proposed product standards by April 2022 regarding menthol in cigarettes and characterizing flavors in cigars.
As a reminder, the FDA rule-making process for these and all potential product standards has multiple steps and provide several opportunities for stakeholders to provide input.
There are formal requirements related to public notice and comment and steps requiring the office of management and budget to assess economic consequences at several points in the process.
Importantly, if the FDA chooses to move forward with their final rules, they must address all comments received throughout the rule-making process.
Of course, any final rule must take into account the potential for unintended consequences and would be subject to legal challenges.
We plan to review the proposed rules in detail and intend to engage with the FDA throughout the rule-making process on each of these issues.
We remain optimistic about the future of harm reduction in the U.S.
We believe we have an unprecedented opportunity to lead the way in shifting millions of smokers away from cigarettes, if we follow the science and foster innovation with the support of reasonable regulation.
We are encouraged that the FDA has authorized a product in each of the three major smoke-free categories.
Going forward, this year, we expect the FDA to carefully consider the scientific merits of each remaining application and we're hopeful for significant progress in product marketing and claim authorizations.
I would like to end my commentary regarding 2021 with the message to Altria's employees.
We experienced several challenges last year in both our professional and personal lives and I admire your resiliency and fortitude.
You are a driving force in moving beyond smoking and we are very appreciative of your efforts and commitment.
Let's now move to our financial outlook for 2022.
Our plans for the year ahead include a continuation of our strategy to balance earnings growth and shareholder returns, with investments toward our vision.
For 2022, our planned investment areas include digital consumer engagement, smoke-free product research, development and regulatory preparations and marketplace activities in support of our smoke-free products.
The external environment remains dynamic, however and we're monitoring various factors such as the economy, including the impact of increased inflation; the impact of current and potential future COVID-19 variants and mitigation strategies; tobacco consumer dynamics, including tobacco usage occasions and available disposable income and regulatory and legislative developments.
Taking these factors into consideration, we expect to deliver 2022 full year adjusted diluted earnings per share in a range of $4.79 to $4.93.
This range represents an adjusted diluted earnings per share growth rate of 4% to 7% from a $4.61 base in 2021.
We expect 2022 adjusted diluted earnings per share growth to be weighted toward the second half of the year.
Our guidance includes anticipated inflationary increases in master settlement agreement expenses and direct materials expenses and our current expectation that we will not have access to the IQOS system in 2022.
I'd like to begin with an update on consumer disposable income, mobility and retail store traffic.
We believe rising gas prices, inflation and the reduction of COVID-19 relief programs led to a decrease in disposable income on a sequential and year-over-year basis.
In addition, increased consumer mobility versus the prior-year offered consumers more options for their discretionary spending and led to fewer tobacco usage occasions.
At retail, fourth quarter trends were unchanged sequentially.
We estimate that compared to pre-pandemic levels, the number of tobacco consumer trips to the store continued to be depressed, but tobacco expenditures per trip remained elevated.
Moving to our businesses.
The smokeable product segment delivered excellent financial performance once again.
Our strategy for this segment continues to be maximizing profitability, while balancing investments in Marlboro, with funding the growth of our smoke-free portfolio.
We believe our teams are successfully executing this strategy and the segment has delivered strong profit growth and stable Marlboro marketplace performance throughout the pandemic period.
In the fourth quarter, the segment grew its adjusted OCI by 4.9% and expanded its adjusted OCI margins to 56.2%.
The segment also reported strong net price realization of 8.8%.
Fourth quarter smokeable segment reported domestic cigarette volumes decline by 5.9%.
When adjusted for trade inventory movements and other factors, we estimate that segment domestic cigarette volumes for the fourth quarter declined by 8% and that industry volumes declined by 6.5% over the same period.
As a reminder, adjusted cigarette volumes were strong in the fourth quarter of 2020, with our smokeable segment adjusted cigarette volumes declining by just 1% and industry volumes growing by one half percent.
For the full year, smokeable segment adjusted OCI grew 3.1% to $10.4 billion.
Adjusted OCI margins expanded by 1.2 percentage points to 57.6%.
These strong full year results were supported by robust net price realization up 9.1%.
Full year smokable segment reported domestic cigarette volumes declined 7.5% due to the strong comparison period and the continuation of pandemic driven changes in the consumer behavior.
When adjusted for trade inventory movement, calendar differences and other factors, we estimate that smokable segment cigarette volumes declined by 6% and that the full industry declined by 5.5%.
We believe it's important to analyze cigarette volume trends over the longer term as decline rates in any one year can be influenced by various factors.
The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly been one of these distorting factors and we believe the best way to assess cigarette volumes during this period is looking at 2020 and 2021 volumes combined.
In fact, the two-year average decline rates for adjusted smokable segment and industry cigarette volume declines were 4% and 3%, respectively, well within the range of historic norms.
Turning to marketplace performance.
Marlboro remains strong and has demonstrated resilience.
The cigarette category remains very competitive.
After market share gains in the first half of 2021, Marlboro did see share in the fourth quarter.
We believe the sequential share decline occurred due to macroeconomic pressures on consumer disposable income.
While the vast majority of Marlboro consumers are highly brand loyal, we do know that cigarette brand selection for a subset of smokers is dependent on economic conditions.
These consumers are more likely to select premium brands during economic upswings, as demonstrated by Marlboro share gains in the first half of 2021, but they are also more likely to trade down in tougher economic situations.
We remain focused on the long-term strength of Marlboro and we are very pleased that its full year share grew 0.2 to 43.1% and that the brand remained stable since the beginning of the pandemic.
In discount, total segment retail share in the fourth quarter continued to fluctuate, increasing 0.7 sequentially to 26% driven primarily by deep discount products.
We believe the share increases observed in the discount segment are due to the previously mentioned macroeconomic factors that pressured the consumer in the fourth quarter.
For the full year, discount segment share increased five-tenths to 25.4%, which was at the high end of its historical ranges.
We expect fluctuation in discount segment shares to continue as the cohort of price sensitive consumers react to their short-term economic conditions.
And in cigars, Middleton provided strong contributions to smokable segment financial results.
Reported cigar shipment volume was essentially unchanged for the year, as Middleton maintained the strength of the iconic Black & Mild brand and successfully managed the supply chain during a challenging year.
Turning to the oral tobacco product segment.
Adjusted OCI and adjusted OCI margins contracted for the full year primarily due to increased investments behind on!
Total segment reported shipment volume was unchanged for the year.
When adjusted for trade inventory movements and calendar differences, we estimate that total oral tobacco segment volumes declined by 0.5%.
We remain pleased with the overall performance of the segment as Copenhagen continues to generate significant income in the high-margin MST category and we're excited about the growth demonstrated by on!
Oral tobacco product segment retail share for the fourth quarter was down slightly sequentially as strong share gains from on!
nearly offset declines in MST. The segment declined 1.6 percentage points versus the fourth quarter last year due to the continued growth of the oral nicotine pouch category.
Turning to our investment in ABI.
We recorded $172 million of adjusted equity earnings in the fourth quarter, representing Altria's share of ABI's third quarter results.
For the full year, we recorded $639 million in adjusted equity earnings, up 18.3% versus 2020.
As we shared in our previous earnings call, we view our ABI stake as a financial investment and our goal is to maximize the long-term value of the investment for our shareholders.
In our all other operating category, we continue to make progress on our wind down of Philip Morris Capital Corporation.
At year-end, the net finance assets balance was $114 million, down more than $200 million since the end of 2020 due to rents received and asset sales.
As previously announced, we expect to complete the PMCC wind down by the end of 2022.
Turning to capital allocation.
We remain committed to creating long-term shareholder value through the pursuit of our vision and our significant capital returns.
These record cash returns included paying $6.4 billion in dividends, raising the dividend for the 56th time in 52 years and repurchasing nearly 36 million shares during the year totaling $1.7 billion.
We also sold Ste.
Michelle Wine Estates and expanded our share repurchase program from $2 billion to $3.5 billion.
We have approximately $1.8 billion remaining under this expanded program, which we expect to complete by December 31, 2022.
We continue to have a strong balance sheet and our goal is to maintain an investment-grade credit rating.
As of year-end, our debt to EBITDA ratio was 2.3 times and our weighted average coupon was 4%.
We've also posted our usual quarterly metrics, which include pricing, inventory and other items.
Let's open the question-and-answer period.
Operator, do we have any questions?

user
sees fy adjusted earnings per share $4.79 to $4.93.
expect to deliver 2022 full-year adjusted diluted earnings per share in a range of $4.79 to $4.93.
qtrly net revenues $6,255 million, down 0.8%.
altria's tobacco businesses have not experienced a material adverse impact to date due to covid-19 pandemic.
altria group - expects 2022 capital expenditures to be between $200 million and $250 million.
abi continued to be impacted by covid-19 pandemic in 2021, including effects of covid-19 variants, supply-chain constraints, others.
altria group - as of december 31, 2021, altria's net finance assets balance was $114 million, down $206 million since end of 2020 due to rents received and asset sales.
expects 2022 adjusted diluted earnings per share growth to be weighted toward second half of year.
qtrly total cigarette shipment volumes 22.42 billion, down 5.9%.

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