Philip Morris International (PMI) and Swedish Match dissolved their joint venture begun in 2009 to market smokeless tobacco products outside Scandinavia and the US, the companies said.

“There is a small but growing demand for snus in current joint venture markets. The development has, however, taken longer than the parties had initially anticipated. As a consequence the parties have mutually agreed to dissolve the joint venture,” said Swedish Match. SMPM International was a 50/50 joint venture that most recently sold snus in Canada, Russia, Israel and Malaysia, the snus maker said.
Swedish Match will contract manufacture snus products on a transitional basis for PMI in markets including Canada and Russia, the cigarette maker said. PMI will distribute Swedish Match’s flagship General snus brand in the two countries as part of the transition.