Philip Morris International’s (PMI) third-quarter results showed operating income at the multinational was up by 2.2 per cent for the quarter, and up by 5.3 per cent for the nine-month period, with Chief Executive Officer André Calantzopoulos commenting that “underlying business performance is in good shape”.

USD 3.2 billion (EUR 2.78 billion) in operating income was reported for the quarter, up 2.2 per cent, and operating income of USD 8.7 billion for the nine-month period showed a 5.3 per cent increase on the comparable period in 2017. Net revenues for the quarter, at USD 7.5 billion, were up by 0.4 per cent, while USD 22.1 billion in net revenues for the nine-month period were 8.2 per cent higher than those in 2017.
PMI shipped 203 billion cigarettes and heated tobacco units in the third quarter, down 2.1 per cent. In the nine-month period, unit shipment volume of 579.3 billion cigarettes and heated tobacco units was down by 1.2 per cent. This included 550.1 billion cigarettes (down by 15.5 billion units on first-quarter 2017), and 29.2 billion heated tobacco sticks (up by 8.7 billion units, or 42.4 per cent).
Cigarette shipments for the quarter were down in all regions PMI ships to, except for Middle East and Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. The nine-month period showed a 5 per cent increase in shipments in the South and Southeast Asia region, with all others showing shipment declines. The largest declines were in the regions East Asia and Australia, and Eastern Europe, were 10.3 per cent and 9.2 per cent fewer sticks were shipped in the nine-month period respectively.
The company reported drastic gains of at least 100 per cent in heated tobacco unit shipments to all regions where IQOS is sold, except the East Asia and Australia region, which includes key markets Japan and South Korea. In the third quarter, heated tobacco shipments to that region fell by 48.2 per cent, resulting in an overall decline in total heated tobacco unit shipments. 8.652 billion heated tobacco units were shipped in the third quarter, down 11 per cent. Over the nine-month period, 19.755 billion heated tobacco units were shipped to the East Asia and Australia region, up 5.7 per cent on the 18.697 billion units shipped in the comparable period in 2017.
Calantzopoulos said, "We remain focused on our smoke-free transformation and are very encouraged by the continued progress of our smoke-free products and initiatives, especially across the EU and Russia. As previously announced, this quarter existing IQOS device and consumable inventories were rightsized in Japan ahead of the upcoming global launch of our new IQOS 3 and IQOS 3 Multi devices. Importantly, our worldwide in-market sales of heated tobacco units this year remain set to almost double and we continue to anticipate shipments of approximately 41-42 billion units."