saw a much greater increase of $6.6 billion, from $23 billion in 2009 to $29.6 billion in 2018.
This was mainly due to the presence of smokeless products in Altria’s portfolio since over a decade, which offset any decrease in cigarette consumption. PM being a pure cigarette player, did not have this buffer until 2016. Despite a larger drop in volume, Philip Morris’ cigarette sales are still over 6.6x that of Altria’s, due to a much larger market reach.
Altria witnessed a net increase of $2 billion while Philip Morris saw a net increase of $2.5 billion in segment revenues.Altria has been an early entrant into the smokeless products category, with its offerings such as Copenhagen and Skoal, whereas PM ventured into the heated tobacco space as recently as in 2016.
Such a vast difference is mainly due to the geographies they cater to – Altria sells its smokeless products in the US and hence is subjected to regulatory hurdles and long procedures, whereas PM successfully expanded globally with very high demand for heated tobacco in Japan and Europe.