How Philip Morris creates the ‘cigarette of the future’
By Olaf Geurts (editor), Leonie Coppes (trainee 2024-2025), | 30 October, 2024
IQOS, the electronic device from tobacco giant Philip Morris is said to be a “more conscious alternative” to the traditional cigarette. Health scientists warn that heating tobacco still releases carcinogenic substances.
Yet Philip Morris is fully committed to the IQOS as the smoke of the future, according to interviews conducted by The Investigative Desk with tobacco sales representatives. Philip Morris likes to see itself as a forerunner in the search for new sources of revenue as tobacco regulation tightens worldwide. In its own words, it is building a “smoke-free world.” Nevertheless, by 2023, cigarettes still accounted for more than 60 percent of the company’s net sales, some $22 billion.
The first financial success with its flagship IQOS has already been achieved. Recently, for the first time, Philip Morris turned over more sales with the IQOS than with its best-known cigarette brand Marlboro.
With its ambition to become a “global leader in nicotine,” Philip Morris is thinking especially well of itself, believes researcher Daniel Kotz.
Read the whole story at NRC.
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