Historical Dividends for Altria (1979-2022)

Altria (ticker symbol: MO) is one of the most popular dividend stocks among dividend growth investors. Altria owns Phillip Morris USA, which sells Marlboro, the most popular cigarette brand in the world in terms of sales.  Altria controls about 48.8% of the cigarette market in the United States and sells various cigarette brands such as Parliament, Virginia Slims, and Basic brands in addition to the Marlboro brand.

Altria was formerly known as Phillip Morris Companies, Inc. prior to a re-branding that occurred in 2003.  Altria has engaged in two corporate spin-offs in recent years.  In 2007 Kraft Foods was spun off from Altria (now know as Kraft Heinz with ticker symbol KHC), and in 2008 Phillip Morris International (ticker symbol: PM) was spun off. 

I last wrote about Altria back in 2012 and am providing my first follow-up on the popular dividend stock since then.  Altria's stock price has struggled since July 2017 when it topped out at about $74/share.  At the time, Altria had a trailing price/earnings (PE) ratio of around 22 or 23 and an annual dividend payout of $2.44/share.  At that price and that dividend payout, Altria's dividend yield was approximately 3.30%.

According to Value Line, Altria is projected to earn approximately $4.85/share for the 2022 calendar year.  Altria closed at $46.71 on December 9, 2022.  Assuming that Altria really does earn $4.85/share, then its current trailing PE is about 9.63, about 56% lower than it was at the stock's peak in July 2017.  Altria currently pays an annual dividend of $3.76/share.  At the most recent closing price for Altria, its dividend yield is about 8.04%, about 143% higher than the dividend yield was in July 2017.

The crazy thing is that even though Altria's earnings per share increased 43% from about $3.39/share in 2017 to a projected $4.85/share in 2022 and the dividend per share increased 54% from $2.44/share to $3.76/share, the share price has decreased about 37% from $74 in July 2017 to $46.71 today.

There are several reasons for Altria's share price decline in the past several years.  One reason was the investment of $13 billion in JUUL in 2018, an investment which may end up being a total loss for Altria.  Altira also invested $1.8 billion in Canadian cannabis company, Cronos, in 2019, an investment which is also almost certainly underwater at the present time.  There has also been a decline in smoking rates among adults in the U.S. from about 20.9% in 2005 to about 12.5% as of 2020. 

Nevertheless, despite a somewhat cloudy and unpredictable future, Altria is still very profitable and is at one of its lowest valuations since the late 1990s.  I personally believe that a decade from now, Altria share price will be significantly higher than it is today and ordinary investors will wonder how this stock ever traded at such a low valuation relative to earnings per share and annual dividend payouts.

The charts shown below (click on each chart for a larger view) show annual dividend payments for Altria between 1979 and 2022.  These charts also show increases in the annual dividend payments over various 5- and 10-year periods of time.  As shown, the 5-year annualized dividend increase has ranged between a low of about 7.70% (for the period ending in 2022) and a high of about 25.36% (for the period ending in 1990).   The 10-year annualized dividend increase has ranged between a low of about 8.03% (for the period ending in 2022) and a high of about 23.12% (for the period ending in 1989). 

 

* Without Kraft Foods included in its results, Altria would have paid a dividend of  $2.88 in 2007.
** Without Phillip Morris International included in its results, Altria would have paid a dividend of $1.22 in 2008., 
*** These charts start with data from the calendar year 1979 because I was unable to locate reliable annual dividend payouts for the years prior to 1979.