Altria Group
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Feb 01, 2023, 9:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Altria Group 2022 fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. Today's call is scheduled to last about one hour, including remarks by Altria's management and the question-and-answer session. Representatives of the investment community and media on the call will be able to ask questions following the conclusion of the prepared remarks. I would now like to turn the call over to Mac Livingston, vice president of investor relations for the Altria Client Services.
Please go ahead, sir.
Mac Livingston -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thanks, Todd. Good morning. And thank you for joining us. This morning, Billy Gifford, Altria's CEO; and Sal Mancuso, our CFO, will discuss Altria's fourth quarter and full year business results.
Earlier today, we issued a press release providing our results. The release, presentation, quarterly metrics, and our latest corporate responsibility report are all available at altria.com. During our call today, unless otherwise stated, we're comparing results to the same period in 2021. Our remarks contain forward-looking and cautionary statements and projections of future results.
Please review the forward-looking and cautionary statements section at the end of today's earnings release for various factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from projections. Future dividend payments and share repurchases remain subject to the discretion of Altria's board. Altria reports its financial results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
Today's call will contain various operating results on both a reported and adjusted basis. Adjusted results exclude special items that affect comparisons with reported results. Descriptions of these non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations are included in today's earnings release and on our website at altria.com. Finally, all references in today's remarks to tobacco consumers or consumers within a specific tobacco category or segment refer to existing adult tobacco consumers 21 years of age or older.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Billy.
Billy Gifford -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Mac. Good morning. And thank you for joining us. It was an exciting year for Altria as our businesses delivered strong financial performance, and we continued to strategically invest toward our vision.
We grew our adjusted diluted earnings per share by 5%, and our tobacco businesses remained resilient and successfully executed their strategies. We also returned significant cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Last year, we returned more than $8.4 billion to shareholders, outpacing our record returns from 2021 and representing the largest single-year cash return since 2002. Our vision guided our actions, and we believe we made meaningful progress on our journey toward moving beyond smoking.