Altria Earnings

"Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE: MO) today announced third-quarter diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $1.24, up $0.19 or 18.1% versus the prior year, including favorable tax items of $0.05 per share and charges of $0.02 per share for asset impairment, exit and implementation costs, as well as other items detailed on the attached Schedule 7."

"'In the third quarter, we continued to witness improvement in our business fundamentals, which generated robust earnings growth,' said Louis C. Camilleri, chairman and chief executive officer of Altria Group, Inc. 'In addition, we took numerous steps to accelerate our growth by investing behind product innovation and announcing our intention to pursue a further restructuring of our company.'"

From Altria's website -- www.altria.com:

PM USA tobacco marketshare: 50.6%
PM USA third quarter revenue: $4 Billion, which is up 3.2% from Q3 2006
PM USA third quarter cigarette shipment volume: 47.1 Billion units, which is down 1% from Q3 2006

PM International third quarter revenue: $5.9 Billion, which is up 9.3% from Q3 2006
PM International third quarter cigarette shipment volume: 217.2 Billion units, which is up 0.6% from Q3 2006 (taking into account an aquisition in Pakistan). If we want to be picky and not count this acquisition, volume was actually down 4 billion units or 1.9%. If you want the country break down, you will need to read the entire earnings statement from their website.

In related Altria news:

"During the third quarter of 2007 Altria Group, Inc. increased its regular quarterly dividend by 8.7% to $0.75 per common share, which represents an annualized rate of $3.00 per common share."