Tobacco group Philip Morris sees iQOS as key to smokeless future in UK

Send a link to a friend  Share

[June 30, 2017] LONDON (Reuters) - Cigarette maker Philip Morris International thinks its iQOS smokeless tobacco product can make Britain a country of non-smokers in coming years, an executive said on Friday.

Since iQOS was launched in the UK in December, Philip Morris has found that about 70 percent of users are able to give up cigarettes, Peter Nixon, its UK and Ireland managing director, told BBC Radio. That compares with only about 15-20 percent of people who use e-cigarettes, he said.

"It's unprecedented," Nixon told the Today show. "We're very encouraged that products like iQOS are the absolute game changer."

Whereas e-cigarettes use nicotine-laced liquid, IQOS heats tobacco sticks, called Heets, to a high enough temperature to create a vapor but not smoke.

Philip Morris, which has Marlboro cigarettes among its global brands, has applied to U.S. health regulators to have iQOS recognized as having "modified risk" compared with cigarettes.

British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco are also selling tobacco-based "vaping" devices, but so far Philip Morris is in the lead.

The company sells about 7 billion Heets a year, which is tiny compared with the 820 billion conventional cigarettes it sells. But Nixon told the BBC that the company hopes to produce 100 billion Heets next year, a huge jump from the less than 400 million it made in 2015.

"We're absolutely serious. One day we want to stop selling cigarettes," Nixon said on the program. "We're moving very fast."

[to top of second column]

There are still 7.5 million smokers in Britain, Nixon said, and Philip Morris has hired "freelancers" to help to bring that number down. These freelancers act like quitting coaches and can earn 50 pounds ($64.95) from Philip Morris for every person they convert from cigarettes to iQOS.

"With these types of programs we can get that down to almost zero in coming years," Nixon said.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller; Editing by David Goodman)

[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

Back to top