British American Tobacco underlined the growing pricing power of tobacco companies yesterday after beating market expectations with a 15.5 per cent rise in first-half pre-tax profits.

In spite of a 2 per cent drop in like-for-like volumes, higher cigarette prices, earnings from recent acquisitions and the weaker pound helped BAT deliver a 24 per cent increase in revenue to £6.78bn for the six months to end-June.