Maximize the benefits of smoke-free products

At PMI, we are accelerating the end of smoking by working to make cigarettes obsolete. To that end, we are transforming our operations and value chain to develop, assess, and commercialize smoke-free products that are scientifically substantiated to be a better alternative to continued smoking.

 

 

Our 2025 Roadmap goals

See our full 2025 roadmap

MAXIMIZE THE BENEFITS OF SMOKE-FREE PRODUCTS

Develop and commercialize science-based smoke-free alternatives, making them available in 100 markets (of which at least half are low- and middle-income markets) and continuing to increase the total number of users.

Deploy robust youth access prevention programs in indirect retail channels and ensure that sales of our products abide by our Marketing Codes.

Key performance indicators to track our progress

Develop and commercialize science-based smoke-free alternatives, making them available in 100 markets (of which at least half are low- and middle-income markets) and continuing to increase the total number of users

By the end of 2024, our smoke-free products were available for sale in 95 markets*, of which 49 percent were low- and middle-income markets**. We estimate that approximately 38.6 million adults worldwide were using our smoke-free products***.

*, **, and ***, see PMI's Integrated Report 2024.


Deploy robust youth access prevention programs in indirect retail channels and ensure that sales of our products abide by our Marketing Codes
During 2024, we covered the vast majority (99 percent) of our shipment volume with youth access prevention programs in our indirect retail channels. Additionally, we began performing external monitoring over these programs in three key and high risk markets.
fundamentals background

See full performance metrics

view data

Learn more about PMI’s Sustainability Index in our Integrated Report 2024. See the full performance metrics and related footnotes here.

The right thing to do

The best choice a person can make is to never start smoking. For those who do smoke, their best course of action is to quit. However, many do not. Those adults who would otherwise continue to smoke should have access to nicotine-containing products that represent a better alternative than continued smoking.

Read more

The right thing to do

The best choice a person can make is to never start smoking. For those who do smoke, their best course of action is to quit. However, many do not. Those adults who would otherwise continue to smoke should have access to nicotine-containing products that represent a better alternative than continued smoking.

Scientific and technological innovation have made such alternatives available today. The vast majority of harmful compounds found in cigarette smoke and associated with smoking-related diseases are generated by combustion. Nicotine-containing products that are scientifically substantiated not to involve combustion (smoke-free products), such as e-vapor, oral nicotine, and heat-not-burn products, while addictive and not risk-free, are likely to present a much better alternative than continued smoking.

For adults who would otherwise continue to smoke, these smoke-free products represent a significant opportunity, as switching to these products has the potential to reduce the risk of developing smoking-related diseases versus continued cigarette use.

Seizing this opportunity to achieve a public health benefit depends not only on the scientifically substantiated riskreduction profile of these smoke-free products but also on adult smokers successfully switching to them and stopping cigarette use completely. It is therefore critical that all adult smokers are made aware of and have access to smoke-free products, understand their benefits versus continued smoking, find them acceptable, and can afford to buy them.

The business case

Through our early and sustained investment in R&D and consequent leadership in technology and innovation, we have built a powerful position and competitive advantage in scientifically substantiated smoke-free products that can help accelerate the decline of cigarette smoking.

Read more

The business case

Through our early and sustained investment in R&D and consequent leadership in technology and innovation, we have built a powerful position and competitive advantage in scientifically substantiated smoke-free products that can help accelerate the decline of cigarette smoking. By allocating the majority of our resources to the research, development, and commercialization of these better alternatives to continued cigarette smoking, we are accelerating our progress toward becoming a smoke-free company and, in doing so, we are building legitimacy and stakeholder trust. Moreover, pioneering smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes allows us to grow our overall market share in the nicotine space, increasing our current and future revenue base as we seek to encourage all adult smokers (including the estimated 130 million adult smokers of our cigarette brands, as well as the hundreds of millions of adult smokers who buy competitor brands) who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch to better alternatives. Our smokefree product consumables drive higher net revenues per unit than cigarettes, with the accretive product contribution per unit already helping to generate returns on our significant investments in developing the smoke-free category.

It is critical for us that the marketing and sale of our products does not interfere with cessation efforts but does encourage switching to better alternatives among those adults who do not quit. Importantly, we also aim to ensure that we do not encourage initiation of nicotine use and that we do not target or have strong appeal to underage people and other unintended audiences. Disregarding these principles could significantly undermine our credibility, harm our reputation, and even trigger regulation that could hinder our ability to engage responsibly with adult consumers or enter certain markets, thereby impeding us from achieving our purpose.

Gold translucent balls

Our progress in 2024

Read more in our Integrated Report
Related articles, case studies, and videos
An IQOS store in Ginza, Japan

Association between the introduction of heated tobacco products and the decline in cigarette smoking

Read case study
Tobacco leaf close-up

Nicotine science

read more
people-crossing-road-thumbnail
Can innovative products like IQOS accelerate the decline of smoking?
Growing scientific consensus map

Growing scientific and regulatory consensus on tobacco harm reduction

read more
Two scientists writing in a lab

Responsible R&D

read more
Product reliability thumbnail

Sustain product reliability

read more
Scientist looking through a microscope
U.S. FDA authorizes PMI’s IQOS as a modified risk tobacco product (MRTP)
YAP in Serbia
Serbia’s Philip Morris affiliates are serious about youth access prevention
the-cube-building
Open science
scientists analyzing research results
Scientific updates
Related reports, policies and documents

Sustainability KPI protocol 2024

download

Looking ahead

We continue to consistently broaden our scientific understanding of our smoke-free products with innovative scientific approaches and study designs across various scientific disciplines with the aim to demonstrate that our smoke-free products positively impact public health. In 2024, we significantly advanced our scientific strategy aiming to show direct (clinical) benefit for smokers who switch completely to smoke-free products, including potential improvement in disease-related symptoms, function, mortality, and healthcare utilization, such as hospitalization. For example, we have initiated retrospective real-world evidence studies focusing on the impact of switching to smoke-free products on cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The relevance of the study is highlighted by the fact that some smoke-free products have been on the market for over 10 years, providing a unique opportunity to observe their impact compared with continued smoking, quitting, or never using any tobacco or nicotine products. Furthermore, and with the availability and increasing use of smoke-free products among adult consumers, there is also an increasing need to understand the health effects of nicotine detached from smoking. Historically, many of the human studies with nicotine were done in the context of cigarettes, and therefore the negative health effects of smoking have been conflated with nicotine. But many in the public health community understand and accept that nicotine is not the primary cause of the health harm associated with cigarette smoking. Nicotine is addictive and not risk-free, but it is not intoxicating or physically impairing. We aim to do our part to increase scientific understanding of the health effects of nicotine in isolation and separate from cigarettes.

Our responsible marketing practices are not limited to controls and remediation plans, but are embedded in our entire commercialization strategy, starting from product design, marketing and communication, and brand building. We remain committed to implementing measures to prevent underage access and use of our smoke-free products, and to evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts. More specifically, in our online channels, we plan to continue expanding our suite of age-verification methods. Meanwhile, in our offline channels, we expect to scale up the age verification mystery shopper programs we piloted in 2024 to ensure a representative coverage of volumes and geographies. Our pilot confirmed that investment in monitoring to maximize effective implementation of our policies is a key component of ensuring our youth access prevention programs are effective, so we will work on scaling our efforts to incorporate it as a mandatory part of our commercialization strategy in our owned channels. We also plan to continue partnering with external auditors to help us verify our implementation of these programs in indirect retail.

The journey to a smoke-free future starts by offering current nicotine consumers innovations that deliver the satisfaction they expect while also being better alternatives to continued smoking and traditional oral tobacco products. In the U.S., Swedish Match’s flagship product ZYN has been on the market more than 10 years and has more recently seen significant increase in demand as more adult nicotine consumers find it a better alternative to cigarette smoking. Because nicotine consumer preferences differ, we want to offer a portfolio of products to meet a broader range of expectations, maximizing access to smoke-free alternatives. That is why we are working to introduce IQOS so that the U.S. adult nicotine consumers soon will have access to FDA-authorized alternatives from PMI companies in three different formats (heated tobacco, oral snus, and nicotine pouches). We remain committed to responsible marketing practices that permit access to products and information only to those aged 21+ and will continue working with key stakeholders to leverage age-restricted technologies to help ensure that.

Looking ahead, awareness will continue to play an even more crucial role in accelerating adult smokers conversion to smoke-free products. While many adult smokers know these alternatives exist, they often lack understanding of the benefits compared with continued cigarette use, and are often skeptical about these benefits. This skepticism persists partly due to regulatory restrictions in many markets that limit our ability to communicate directly, and in a factual manner, with consumers about smoke-free products. We carefully target our outreach to adult consumers while guarding against access by non-smokers and underage people. Throughout 2025, our awareness strategy will focus on two tracks: engaging with underserved audiences in markets where awareness is already high, while developing infrastructure and organizational capability in (more restricted) markets with lower awareness. We’ll apply successful approaches and best practices from other markets where appropriate, such as proven awareness campaigns, expanding retail presence in rural areas, increasing B2C field force, and strengthening our brands. Additionally, we are exploring new ways to engage adult consumers both online and in-person, creating more relevant messages that resonate with their needs, and developing programs that truly engage adult smokers in the journey to switch to smoke-free alternatives.

Affordability is crucial in increasing access to smoke-free products. To better serve the diverse needs of over half a billion smokers globally, particularly in developing economies, we are expanding our range of noncombustible alternatives to cigarettes. Our regional focus helps us better understand local preferences and improve product accessibility and distribution. By adapting our products and programs to various market conditions, including offering more cost-effective smoke-free options for adult smokers, we can better address the health impacts of our combustible products. At the end of 2024, we commercialized smoke-free products in 46 low- and middle-income markets worldwide. Our goal is to ensure that LMICs represent at least 50 percent of the markets where we sell smoke-free products globally.

Accelerating the transition away from cigarettes among adult consumers who would otherwise continue to smoke is our top priority. From our experience in many markets across Asia, like Japan, Korea and Malaysia, where adult consumers are recognized as early adopters of new technologies, and have access to smoke-free products, we see increasing acceptance of better alternatives, enabling conversion at scale. Innovations like IQOS ILUMA i, with its superior induction heating technology, paired with an evolved range of TEREA and SENTIA consumables that address a wide range of consumer taste preferences and price categories, are driving higher conversion to heat-not-burn products. By anticipating adult consumer needs, focusing on innovation and acceptability across our multi-category portfolio, we can further accelerate the decline of smoking.

This online content about our Integrated Report should be read in conjunction with PMI’s Integrated Report 2024. This report includes metrics that are subject to uncertainties due to inherent limitations in the nature and methods for data collection and measurement. The precision of different collection and measurement techniques may also vary. This report includes data or information obtained from external sources or third parties. Unless otherwise indicated, the data contained herein cover our operations worldwide for the full calendar year 2024 or reflect the status as of December 31, 2024. Where not specified, data comes from PMI financials, nonfinancials, or estimates.

Unless explicitly stated, the data, information, and aspirations in this report do not incorporate PMI’s wellness and healthcare business, Aspeya. Regarding the Swedish Match acquisition, completed late 2022, unless otherwise indicated, this report includes information pertaining to its sustainability performance. Please also refer to "This report at a glance" on page 2 of the PMI’s Integrated Report 2024 for more information. Aspirational targets and goals do not constitute financial projections, and achievement of future results is subject to risks, uncertainties and inaccurate assumptions, as outlined in our forward-looking and cautionary statements on page 206. In PMI’s Integrated Report 2024 and in related communications, the terms “materiality,” “material,” and similar terms are defined in the referenced sustainability standards and are not meant to correspond to the concept of materiality under the U.S. securities laws and/or disclosures required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

Share this page