IQOS now third biggest tobacco brand where sold

Fourth-quarter results from Philip Morris show just how successful its heat-not-burn IQOS system is becoming.

The report shows that, in the 52 markets where IQOS is available, the brand is now the third-biggest tobacco brand behind only Marlboro and Winston.

Almost 60bn HEETs (the sticks on which the IQOS system relies) have now been produced with the company predicting this figure will rise to 100bn in 2021.

Markets where IQOS is sold include: UK, Germany, Indonesia, Canada, Russia and New Zealand. There is also a limited launch in the US where two cities – Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia.

In one city, Vilnius in Lithuania, IQOS now represents 28.5% of the total tobacco market.

Philip Morris says there are now 13.6m IQOS users worldwide and, impressively, 71% have now quit traditional smoking.

The company also says that a new heat-not-burn system, first reported in Vape Business earlier this month, will begin to be rolled out worldwide this year. Lil Hybrid is part of a portfolio of devices produced by Korean manufacturer KT&G.

Reacting to the results, PMI’s chief executive André Calantzopoulos said: “2019 marked a year of strong underlying business performance for PMI, driven by broad-based growth for IQOS and solid pricing for our combustible tobacco portfolio, with like-for-like adjusted diluted EPS up by 9.9%, excluding currency.”

“We continue to make significant progress in the transformation of our business, with smoke-free products now accounting for 8% of shipment volume and nearly one-fifth of net revenues, while further demonstrating our ability to maintain combustible tobacco leadership internationally, as evidenced by Marlboro’s full-year cigarette share of 10% – an all-time high.”