British American Tobacco's dividend policy (almost) as reliable as clockwork

British American Tobacco (BATS) announced their final results this morning along with their dividend policy for the 2012 financial year. They confirmed a final dividend of 92.7p per share (going ex dividend on the 13/03/2013) giving a total dividend of 134.9p per share. This gives us an increase of 6.6% from last year. So as many investors expected British American Tobacco's dividend policy of dividend growth has held firm and they have managed to bump the dividend up again this year. It is far less impressive then it has been in recent years however of all the dividend growth stocks I own this annual growth seems to be better than most.