Philip Morris International (PMI) cigarette shipments fell 5.4 per cent in the third quarter due to declines “principally” in North Africa and Russia, the company said.

Marlboro shipments, representing 73.3 billion of 207 billion sticks shipped, declined 1.1 per cent. L&M volume fell 3.2 per cent to 25.3 billion sticks. In North Africa, PMI market share dropped six percentage points to 24.6 per cent.
Operating income in the three months to 30 Sept rose 1.2 per cent to USD 3.1 billion (EUR 2.8 billion) on sales that were 0.8 percentage point higher at USD 7 billion, PMI said.
PMI said heat-not-burn cartridges for iQOS, its most prominent reduced risk product, gained a 3.5 per cent share of the Japanese market in the quarter. Japan is the best performing country among those where the product has been introduced. In total, PMI shipped 2.1 billion Marlboro HeatStick units, up from 278 million units in the comparable quarter last year.