BATS vs. IMB, ULVR, DGE, RKT, CCEP, TSCO, KYGA, CCH, ABF, 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), Reckitt Benckiser Group (RKT), Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), Tesco (TSCO), Kerry Group (KYGA), Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), Associated British Foods (ABF), and Bunzl (BNZL). These companies are all part of the "consumer defensive" sector.
British American Tobacco vs.
Imperial Brands (LON:IMB) and British American Tobacco (LON:BATS) 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 profitability, earnings, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, dividends, risk, institutional ownership, valuation and community ranking.
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.
Imperial Brands pays an annual dividend of GBX 153 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.5%. British American Tobacco pays an annual dividend of GBX 236 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.5%. Imperial Brands pays out 64.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. British American Tobacco pays out -38.1% 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.
Imperial Brands has a beta of 0.42, suggesting that its stock price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, British American Tobacco has a beta of 0.27, suggesting that its stock price is 73% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Imperial Brands presently has a consensus target price of GBX 2,205, indicating a potential downside of 20.83%. British American Tobacco has a consensus target price of GBX 3,183.33, indicating a potential upside of 0.58%. Given British American Tobacco's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe British American Tobacco is more favorable than Imperial Brands.
In the previous week, British American Tobacco had 3 more articles in the media than Imperial Brands. MarketBeat recorded 4 mentions for British American Tobacco and 1 mentions for Imperial Brands. British American Tobacco's average media sentiment score of 0.51 beat Imperial Brands' score of 0.00 indicating that British American Tobacco is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Imperial Brands has higher earnings, but lower revenue 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.
68.0% of Imperial Brands shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.7% of British American Tobacco shares are held by institutional investors. 7.3% of Imperial Brands shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.6% of British American Tobacco shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
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.
Summary
British American Tobacco beats Imperial Brands on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
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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.
British American Tobacco Competitors List
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This page (LON:BATS) was last updated on 3/16/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
