uk bat.com - Who we are
We are a leading tobacco group, with brands sold in around 180 markets.
With more than 200 brands in our portfolio, we make the cigarette chosen by one in eight of the world’s one billion adult smokers. We hold robust market positions in each of our regions and have leadership in more than 60 markets. In 2012, our subsidiary companies sold 694 billion cigarettes.
In the same year, our subsidiaries enabled governments worldwide to gather more than £30 billion in duty, excise and sales taxes on our products, more than seven times the Group’s profit after tax.
We have sustained a significant global presence for over 100 years. Our business was founded in 1902 and by 1912 had become one of the world’s top dozen companies by market capitalisation.
At the end of 2012, our company was the sixth largest listed on the London Stock Exchange.
People and factories
We have 44 cigarette factories in 39 countries. In addition to cigarettes, we make cigarillos, roll your own and pipe tobacco.
We employ more than 55,000 people worldwide. Our workforce is strongly multi-cultural and we have a devolved structure, with each local company having wide freedom of action and responsibility for its operations. Decisions are made as close as possible to the local stakeholders of each business, within a framework of principles, standards, policies, strategies and delegated authorities.
Operating responsibly
We believe that because our products pose risks to health, it is all the more important that our business is managed responsibly. Responsibility is integral to our strategy and through dialogue with our stakeholders, we are working to pursue our commercial objectives in ways consistent with changing expectations of a modern tobacco business.
Tobacco growing
We are the only international tobacco group with a significant interest in tobacco leaf growing, working with thousands of farmers internationally. Our companies run leaf programmes providing direct agronomy support to farmers if it is not otherwise available, covering all aspects of crop production and environmental best practice - in 2012 our companies ran these in 20 countries, covering 164,667 hectares under cultivation. The Group purchased approximately 440,000 tonnes of leaf in 2012, grown by all our leaf suppliers.
What do our people say about us?
How our employees feel about working here is very important to us. We carry out a regular global employee opinion survey called Your Voice to give our people a secure and confidential way to tell us exactly what they think about working at British American Tobacco.
In our latest survey, 80 per cent of employees said they were extremely satisfied with British American Tobacco as a place to work, well above the benchmark of 71 per cent in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector.
Read more about our latest employee opinion survey in our Sustainability data centre 
.
Who We Are 2013
Who We Are is the Group’s corporate brochure. It tells the story of our business and makes known our views on the key issues that affect our industry.