Billy Gifford
Chief Executive Officer at Altria Group
Thanks, Mac. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We made meaningful progress in pursuit of our vision, and our highly profitable traditional tobacco businesses continued to perform well in a challenging environment. In spite of the absence of an effective regulatory environment, we saw continued early momentum from NJOY and believe our businesses are on track to deliver against full-year plans.
We also demonstrated our continued commitment to maximizing the return on our investments and delivering strong shareholder returns with the sale of a portion of our investment in ABI and the subsequent expansion of our share repurchase program in March. My remarks this morning will focus on the continued early momentum behind NJOY's commercialization, the state of the e-vapor category and enforcement progress, encouraging first quarter results from on! and our financial outlook.
I'll then turn it over to Sal, who will provide further detail on our financial results and additional information on the partial sale of our ABI investment. Let's begin with our e-vapor business. After three full quarters of ownership, we remain excited about NJOY and its potential in the legal U.S. e-vapor market. In the first quarter, we broadened NJOY's distribution to over 80,000 stores. And we expect to expand to approximately 100,000 stores by year-end.
We also continued the rollout of NJOY's first retail trade program, which we believe will help NJOY achieve optimal visibility and product fixture space at retail. Today, more than 70% of contracted stores have chosen options that secure premium positioning in the e-vapor fixture for NJOY. And we expect the majority of fixture resets to be completed in the first half of this year. To generate trial of NJOY, we expanded promotional offers at retail in the first quarter and saw promising results.
NJOY's retail share of consumables grew in each of the past six months, and was 4.3 share points in the quarter, up 0.6 share points sequentially, and we have seen early signs of longer-term adoptions from smokers and vapors that have tried NJOY. Late last year, we tested a variety of promotional offers in a limited number of retail accounts. Diving into one retail account example, share grew by over nine percentage points versus the pre-promotional period.
In the first quarter, we reduced promotions in the account, and NJOY retained over 50% of the share gain during the trial period, settling five percentage points higher than the pre-promotion period. We believe these results speak to NJOY's appeal once consumers try the product. We are also inspecting a variety of other metrics to better evaluate trial and adoption of NJOY in the early stages of its expansion.
One such metric that we believe is an important indicator of trial in the e-vapor category is retail share of devices, as we believe it's a measure of vapor and smoker trial and a potential leading indicator of longer-term adoption. In the first quarter, NJOY's share of devices in the multi-outlet and convenience channel was 11.5 share points, an increase of 2.4 share points sequentially and 6.4 share points since the third quarter of 2023, our first full quarter of ownership.
Turning to shipments, NJOY consumables shipment volume was approximately 10.9 million units, and NJOY's device shipment volume was approximately one million units. While shipment volume was essentially flat sequentially, recall that 2023 fourth quarter NJOY shipment volume included building pipeline inventory at wholesale and retail to support the increased demand we anticipated in the first quarter.
Moving forward, our plan aims to broaden the awareness of NJOY and grow brand affinity through NJOY's improved positioning at retail, a new equity campaign that emphasizes enjoys unique attributes and exceptional vaping experience, a new adult-only event marketing infrastructure, which NJOY expects to activate this summer; and our adult tobacco consumer database, which allows us to communicate to millions of the age-verified U.S. adult tobacco consumers through various marketing channels.
We also continue to expect that NJOY will submit PMTA filings for flavored NJOY ACE products with age-gated Bluetooth technology by the end of the second quarter. NJOY's early success is encouraging in the context of broader trends in the e-vapor marketplace, where a lack of FDA-authorized products and the continued proliferation of illicit disposal products threaten the harm-reduction opportunity in the United States.
As it relates to enforcement, we believe that a comprehensive approach is needed to address this issue, and we continue to actively engage with regulators, state and federal lawmakers, our trade partners and other stakeholders to build awareness and drive marketplace enforcement. There is still significant work ahead, but we saw some encouraging actions in the first quarter. In the first quarter alone, the FDA, in collaboration with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, issued over 450 e-vapor related import refusals, up from 348 during all of last year.
The agency also continued to levy civil monetary penalties and send warning letters to manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers of illicit products. While these actions represent signs of progress, we believe they are wholly inadequate. Illicit markets are a threat to public health, and we believe the FDA's enforcement approach is not of the scale or scope needed to bring about fundamental change in the marketplace.
As a result, we identified to the agency specific steps we believe they can take to build a more effective compliant and enforcement program to address the illicit market, including imposing direct liability on the large manufacturers, importers and distributors of illicit products, focusing on import prevention and clear enough widespread confusion in the marketplace about the FDA's enforcement priorities. Earlier this month, we sent a letter to the FDA, highlighting these recommendations and reinforcing our commitment to work collaboratively on solutions that can restore order in the e-vapor marketplace.
We also continue to work with state legislatures that have passed or are considering legislation requiring manufacturers to certify that they are compliant with FDA requirements. As of April 19, eight states have passed such legislation and 12 states are considering it. And we've seen increased legal action against entities that are enabling the illicit market. As we've previously disclosed, we initiated litigation in the United States District Court in California relating to the sale of unlawful products.
Due to some procedural challenges, we voluntarily dismissed this litigation earlier this year. We subsequently filed a new lawsuit against five manufacturers, four brick-and-mortar retailers and three online retailers of illicit Elf Bar e-vapor products in February Federal Court in California. And earlier this month, the City of New York filed a lawsuit against 11 wholesalers for their part in the sale of illegal disposable e-vapor products.
We continue to believe in the promise of a responsible e-vapor category, but a strong course correction is needed to protect the tobacco harm reduction opportunity for the millions of adult smokers in the U.S. We've learned from past experience that complex issues like this require the work of many stakeholders. And while we are starting to see some early signs of action, more impactful progress needs to be made. Let's now turn to the oral tobacco category.
Oral nicotine pouches grew 13.8 share points year-over-year and now represent over 40% of the oral tobacco category. Oral nicotine pouches were the primary contributor of the estimated 9.5% increase in oral tobacco industry volume over the past six months. Helix grew on! reported shipment volume to approximately 33 million cans during the first quarter, an increase of 32%. on! continued its momentum at retail, growing its share of the oral tobacco category by 0.7 share points to 7.1%. Helix delivered these impressive results as on! retail price increased by 26%.
This spring, Helix introduced a new trade program that secures premium positioning for on! in over 80% of contracted stores, creating broader visibility of the brand. Helix is continuing its focus on strategically investing behind the brand as the category growth accelerates. Helix is also making final preparations for following its PMTA for on! PLUS, which we expect to submit in the first half of this year. Upon FDA authorization, we believe it will contribute meaningfully to Helix' growth.
We continue to aggressively pursue efforts to create the conditions for tobacco harm reductions success in the U.S., to benefit tobacco consumers, society and our shareholders. I am confident in Altria's ability to lead the way in harm reduction with our exciting portfolio of smoke-free products and our talented and dedicated employees. With our smoke-free progress and the strength of our traditional tobacco businesses in mind, we reaffirm our guidance to deliver 2024, full year adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $5.05 to $5.17, representing a growth rate of 2% to 4.5% from a base of $4.95 in 2023.
I'll now turn it over to Sal to provide more details on the business environment and our results.
