The maker of Golden Virginia tobacco and Winston cigarettes has said vape sales soared last year as it increasingly looks to focus on so-called “next generation” products (NGP).

Imperial Brands, which also makes the JPS cigarettes, the French brand Gauloise and Rizla rolling papers, saw a 26% rise in sales of e-cigarettes for the year to September, with consumers increasingly embracing vapes.

The company manufactures the e-cigarette brand Blu, which is sold across the UK, alongside other NGPs, which brought in £8.2 billion in revenue.

Vapes, heated tobacco and oral nicotine pouches all come under the umbrella of NGPs, because they are manufactured to separate nicotine from harmful tobacco smoke.

Imperial Brands has seen NGP sales grow rapidly as it rolls out new products, but it still makes the bulk of its sales from traditional cigarettes.

It has benefited from rising prices amid a broader decline in the number of people smoking cigarettes, particularly in some of its largest western markets.

While vapes continued to be loss making for the company, the jump in sales helped narrow losses across the NGP division by 43% to £79 million.

The growth of the vaping business also helped boost overall operating profit to £3.9 billion, a 4.6% increase on the year before.

Chief executive Stefan Bomhard said Imperial is taking up a role as an “effective challenger for the industry”.

Imperial said shareholders would get £2.8 billion in returns through a dividend payment and a share buyback programme in 2025.

Derren Nathan, an analyst at the trading platform Hargreaves Lansdown, said Imperial’s push into vapes is “starting to become more meaningful. But for now, it’s still a loss-making activity”.

He added: “There’s cautious optimism for the year ahead too with tobacco and NGP revenue expected to grow at a slow burn, in the low-single digits and operating profits to land a little further ahead in the mid-single digit range.”

The results come amid a ramp-up in anti-smoking regulation and taxes from governments around the world on public health grounds.

Smokers and vapers in the UK will pay more after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a new vaping tax and an increase in tobacco duty to “maintain the incentive to give up smoking”.

The flat rate duty on all vaping liquid will come into effect from October 2026.

Meanwhile, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill has been introduced in Parliament, which would prevent anyone born after January 1 2009 from legally smoking by gradually raising the age at which tobacco can be bought.

However, the Government has reversed potential plans to make it illegal to smoke in pub beer gardens.