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British American Tobacco (BATS) Competitors

British American Tobacco logo
GBX 3,239.53 -8.47 (-0.26%)
As of 12:34 PM Eastern

BATS vs. IMB, ULVR, DGE, CCEP, RKT, TSCO, CCH, ABF, KYGA, and BNZL

Should you be buying British American Tobacco stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of British American Tobacco include Imperial Brands (IMB), Unilever (ULVR), Diageo (DGE), Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), Reckitt Benckiser Group (RKT), Tesco (TSCO), Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), Associated British Foods (ABF), Kerry Group (KYGA), and Bunzl (BNZL). These companies are all part of the "consumer defensive" sector.

British American Tobacco vs.

British American Tobacco (LON:BATS) and Imperial Brands (LON:IMB) are both large-cap consumer defensive companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, community ranking, earnings, profitability, risk, media sentiment and valuation.

Imperial Brands has a net margin of 11.44% compared to British American Tobacco's net margin of -52.84%. Imperial Brands' return on equity of 41.84% beat British American Tobacco's return on equity.

Company Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets
British American Tobacco-52.84% -25.94% 5.16%
Imperial Brands 11.44%41.84%6.92%

British American Tobacco currently has a consensus price target of GBX 3,125, indicating a potential downside of 3.54%. Imperial Brands has a consensus price target of GBX 2,600, indicating a potential downside of 15.42%. Given British American Tobacco's higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe British American Tobacco is more favorable than Imperial Brands.

Company Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score
British American Tobacco
0 Sell rating(s)
1 Hold rating(s)
1 Buy rating(s)
0 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.50
Imperial Brands
0 Sell rating(s)
0 Hold rating(s)
1 Buy rating(s)
0 Strong Buy rating(s)
3.00

British American Tobacco has a beta of 0.27, indicating that its stock price is 73% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Imperial Brands has a beta of 0.42, indicating that its stock price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500.

British American Tobacco received 597 more outperform votes than Imperial Brands when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 74.01% of users gave British American Tobacco an outperform vote while only 69.56% of users gave Imperial Brands an outperform vote.

CompanyUnderperformOutperform
British American TobaccoOutperform Votes
1230
74.01%
Underperform Votes
432
25.99%
Imperial BrandsOutperform Votes
633
69.56%
Underperform Votes
277
30.44%

In the previous week, British American Tobacco had 3 more articles in the media than Imperial Brands. MarketBeat recorded 3 mentions for British American Tobacco and 0 mentions for Imperial Brands. Imperial Brands' average media sentiment score of 0.00 beat British American Tobacco's score of -0.06 indicating that Imperial Brands is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company Overall Sentiment
British American Tobacco Neutral
Imperial Brands Neutral

40.7% of British American Tobacco shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.0% of Imperial Brands shares are held by institutional investors. 10.6% of British American Tobacco shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 7.3% of Imperial Brands shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Imperial Brands has lower revenue, but higher earnings than British American Tobacco. British American Tobacco is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Imperial Brands, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

CompanyGross RevenuePrice/Sales RatioNet IncomeEarnings Per SharePrice/Earnings Ratio
British American Tobacco£25.81B2.76-£13.64B-£619.76-5.23
Imperial Brands£17.31B1.49£1.98B£236.1213.02

British American Tobacco pays an annual dividend of GBX 236 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.3%. Imperial Brands pays an annual dividend of GBX 153 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.0%. British American Tobacco pays out -38.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Imperial Brands pays out 64.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. British American Tobacco is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Imperial Brands beats British American Tobacco on 10 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.

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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time

This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
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Media Sentiment Over Time

This chart shows the average media sentiment of LON and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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BATS vs. The Competition

MetricBritish American TobaccoTobacco IndustryDefensive SectorLON Exchange
Market Cap£71.27B£48.54B£6.85B£2.56B
Dividend Yield7.61%4.94%3.16%4.97%
P/E Ratio-5.233.9211.65132.50
Price / Sales2.76212.6384.42227,865.53
Price / Cash18.6414.60146.2628.11
Price / Book1.332.912.874.54
Net Income-£13.64B-£5.83B£1.01B£5.84B
7 Day Performance1.97%1.15%0.34%3.31%
1 Month Performance1.52%-3.15%1.69%9.43%
1 Year Performance37.91%6.87%46.53%114.47%

British American Tobacco Competitors List

CompanyMarketRankShare PriceAnalysts' Price Target1Y Price PerformanceMarket CapRevenueP/E RatioEmployee CountIndicator(s)
BATS
British American Tobacco
0.5804 of 5 stars
GBX 3,239.53
-0.3%
GBX 3,125
-3.5%
+38.1%£71.27B£25.81B-5.2352,000
IMB
Imperial Brands
1.0791 of 5 stars
GBX 2,991
-0.4%
GBX 2,600
-13.1%
+68.1%£25.11B£17.31B12.6725,200Dividend Increase
ULVR
Unilever
0.8897 of 5 stars
GBX 4,699
+0.3%
GBX 4,550
-3.2%
+14.9%£138.76B£70.72B21.25148,000
DGE
Diageo
2.2661 of 5 stars
GBX 2,070
0.0%
GBX 2,876.67
+39.0%
-25.1%£45.95B£20.48B11.5930,269
CCEP
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
N/AGBX 6,570
-0.2%
N/A+9,944.8%£36.41B£23.04B22.6027,600
RKT
Reckitt Benckiser Group
0.3898 of 5 stars
GBX 4,684
+1.0%
GBX 4,788.50
+2.2%
+8.0%£31.96B£13.78B21.4326,000
TSCO
Tesco
1.1561 of 5 stars
GBX 358.90
+0.0%
GBX 375
+4.5%
+25.1%£23.95B£66.34B18.7849,000
CCH
Coca-Cola HBC
1.356 of 5 stars
GBX 3,790
-0.2%
GBX 3,150
-16.9%
+50.6%£16.40B£12.23B26.2032,700News Coverage
Positive News
ABF
Associated British Foods
1.8699 of 5 stars
GBX 2,233
+1.4%
GBX 2,246.67
+0.6%
-22.3%£16.10B£19.45B11.37133,000Earnings Report
Analyst Forecast
News Coverage
KYGA
Kerry Group
N/AGBX 92.05
-0.1%
N/A+15.1%£15.26B£736.58B24.3521,000News Coverage
BNZL
Bunzl
2.9458 of 5 stars
GBX 2,296
-0.1%
GBX 3,375
+47.0%
-23.6%£7.51B£11.23B15.8724,528Analyst Forecast
Insider Trade

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This page (LON:BATS) was last updated on 5/1/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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