Smoke-Free Products Now Make Up 28% of PMI Revenue

Boosted by a 38% increase in revenue from heated tobacco products, Philip Morris International (PMI)’s earnings were up by the first quarter of 2021.

Diane Caruana

October 6, 2021

The global market share for Heets – excluding the US – was up by 1.7 points to 7.6% in Q1.

In April, PMI told investors that it had posted net revenues of $7.5bn in the quarter, up by 6% on the same period a year ago. And smoke-free products, namely Iqos, accounted for 28% of the total net revenue. In fact global shipment of heated tobacco units was up by 29.9% at 21.7bn units.

In Europe, the tobacco giant shipped 6.4bn Heets for Iqos in the first quarter of 2021, up from 4.6bn in the same period of 2019. Germany and Italy were the leading players.

Eastern Europe (up by 29.1%), and East Asia and Australia (28.3%) also performed very well, while in Latin America and Canada, the growth of the category was much lower, at 2.8%. Interestingly, the tobacco company did not release any figures related to the performance of its smoke-free portfolio in the US.

PMI highlighted that the global market share for Heets – excluding the US – was up by 1.7 points to 7.6% in Q1. Moreover, it revised its full-year 2021 guidance from 4-7% to 5-7% due to the popularity of its heated tobacco products.

IQOS VEEV to be rolled out in a number of markets

After PMI’s latest electronic device IQOS VEEV, was launched in New Zealand in 3Q2020, earlier this year it was announced that it would be rolled out in other markets throughout the year.

Albeit using a heating technology, IQOS VEEV is different to the regular IQOS in that it does not heat tobacco, but e-liquid. VEEV is the pre-filled, pre-sealed pod containing e-liquid which comes with a metallic mesh and tiny holes that heat the liquid up. Besides containing pharmaceutical-grade nicotine, the e-liquid in VEEV also contains food-grade flavourings.

Read Further: TobaccoIntelligence