Phillip Morris International Inc. (PMI) published its third quarter results with net revenues up by 1.8 per cent and a huge rise in shipped heated tobacco units (HTUs), according to a company press release.

The company reported a net revenue of USD 7.64 billion (EUR 6.88 billion) compared to USD 7.5 billion (EUR 6.75 billion) in the third quarter of 2018. The Q3 results also show that PMI’s operating income fell by 11.7 per cent from USD 3.16 billion (EUR 2.85 billion) to USD 2.79 billion (EUR 2.51 billion).
PMI’s cigarette shipment volume of 183.52 billion units was down by 11.5 billion units or 5.9 per cent, whereas the total shipment volume only decreased by 2.1 per cent, according to PMI’s third-quarter report. This was largely due to shipments of HTUs increasing by 84.8 per cent. Q3 saw 16 billion units shipped compared to 8.7 billion in the same quarter of 2018. The increase in PMI’s heated tobacco unit shipment volume was largely driven by Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, the Ukraine and Japan.
On 30 April 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorised the sale of PMI's electrically heated tobacco system IQOS in the US, finding it to be appropriate for the protection of public health. According to the report, PMI estimates that approximately 8.8 million adult smokers around the world have already stopped smoking and switched to PMI's heat-not-burn product, available for sale in 51 markets in key cities or nationwide under the IQOS brand.
André Calantzopoulos, the company’s CEO, commented on the third-quarter results, saying, “Our third quarter results continued to reflect strong underlying business performance and include the better-than-anticipated timing of pricing and costs compared to our previously communicated assumptions for the quarter.” Calantzopoulos went on to comment on the importance of IQOS noting, "Importantly, IQOS was introduced in the US this quarter, where it is currently the only FDA-authorized heat-not-burn product."