A new touchscreen IQOS and big visions of a smoke-free nicotine market. Tobacco company Philip Morris wants to be the "adult in the room" and is calling for tough legislation for smoke-free nicotine products. Vejpkollen has visited Technovation PMI's annual technology seminar in Neuchatel, Switzerland.
A hundred journalists and almost as many communicators, researchers and executives from one of the world's largest tobacco companies were on hand at The Cube, PMI's research centre in Neuchatel, as this year's Technovation took place with the Swiss Alps on the horizon. When the world's largest tobacco companies hold open audiences, they usually attract people from all over the world, and Technovation 2024 was no exception. Today, PMI accounts for 23% of the nicotine market. The market is mainly about cigarettes, but this is rapidly changing fundamentally.
"Today, 40 per cent of our profits come from smoke-free products. The products are available in over 90 markets today, and in Tokyo, for example, we earn more from IQOS and ILUMA than from cigarettes. And in Sweden, snus is bigger than cigarettes. This is a process that we want to accelerate. Our goal is to have 75 per cent of our profits come from smoke-free products by 2030," said Tommaso di Giovanni, Deputy Head of Communications at PMI, in his opening remarks.
Increasingly smoke-free
Sedan the purchase of snus manufacturer Swedish Match PMI currently has everything from snus and nicotine pouches to heated tobacco and e-cigarettes in its smoke-free product portfolio. But the investment in developing its own variants of smoke-free products is costing billions and billions. At the same time, the aim is to become a leader in the current, but perhaps especially the future, market for smokeless nicotine products.
"We have created a ten billion market for heat-not-burn products. Globally, our IQOS/ILUMA system accounts for 75 per cent of that market. But our goal is to convert all smokers. To do that, we need several different product options to succeed," said Oggie Kapetanovic, head of heat-not-burn products at PMI.
Taking market share
In some countries, like Japan, where e-cigarettes with nicotine are bannedIQOS sales have soared and are now seriously challenging cigarette sales. In Sweden, things look a little different. Today ILUMA shares shelf space in shops, not only with traditional cigarettes and snus, but also with a range of disposablevejps and just as many variants of the white snus, the nicotine pouches. And in every category, except for e-cigarettes, PMI has a product in play. Not because PMI doesn't have e-cigarettes in its portfolio, but rather because it chooses its markets. And its battles.
"Currently, the e-cigarette market is relatively uncontrolled and there are a lot of rogue players in the market. There is a lack of quality control and sustainability, especially when it comes to disposable models. We want to see clear legislation that favours responsible players. We want to be the 'adult in the room' when it comes to e-cigarettes", said Mykhailo Shurinov, head of the eVapour department at PMI.
Tobacco flavours only
Today, PMI owns the Veeve brand - an e-cigarette available as both a pre-filled pod system and a disposable model. However, among the Nordic countries only in Finland as PMI sells its e-cigarettes - another country where there are strict restrictions on the flavours of e-cigarettes. Veeve is therefore only sold with different artificial tobacco flavours in Finland.
"We are very restrictive when we market e-cigarettes. They have to be products that have a design and flavour profile that appeals to adults and the salespeople have to be trained on how to keep the age limits. Although we are not the market leader in e-cigarettes today, we want to show that we can be innovators in the market as well," said Mr Shurinov during his speech at Technovation.
New variant of ILUMA
PMI did not announce whether it will launch traditional e-cigarettes in Sweden in the near future. At the same time, it recently introduced a new variant of the heat-not-burn product ILUMA - a variant with a screen and a function to use the device for more than ten puffs without restarting.
