World’s cigarette volume roughly stable through 2015, says PMI chief

The international (excluding China) tobacco industry cigarette volume forecast through 2015 ranges from stable to a continued modest annual decline of up to 1.3 per cent, according to Philip Morris International’s chairman and CEO, Louis Camilleri.

Addressing investors yesterday at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference inNew   York, Camilleri said that PMI expected further growth in non-OECD markets, driven mainly by favorable demographics, to be offset by a continued long-term decline in OECD markets.

IncludingChina, PMI expects the international cigarette market to be stable to increasing by up to 1.1 per cent a year.

PMI expects to meet its mid- to long-term annual organic volume growth target of one per cent for the full-year 2012

Meanwhile, Camilleri said that PMI had completed an exploratory clinical study for the first of its three ‘Next Generation Product (NGPs) platforms’ and planned to initiate a further eight next year.

Ground-breaking for PMI’s first NGP manufacturing facility inEuropewas planned to take place in the middle of next year, he added.

PMI plans to invest heavily during the next three years to establish an initial annual NGP capacity of about 30 billion units.

Commercialization of the NGPs is planned for 2016-2017.