JT aims to catch up

Japan Tobacco Inc. said on Tuesday that it planned to launch a new heat-not-burn (HNB) product in Japan ‘as early as the end of this year,’ according to a story by Taiga Uranaka for Reuters.
The company said it would spend more than ¥100 billion (US$917.43 million) during the next three years on the development and production of reduced-risk products (RRP), products that do not rely on combustion to deliver nicotine.
“For Japan Tobacco’s continuous growth, we must win in the RRP category,” CEO Masamichi Terabatake said at an earnings briefing.
Reuters quoted Mizuho Securities analyst Hiroshi Saji as saying that HNB products would account for an estimated 29 percent of Japan’s tobacco market this year, up from 16 percent in 2017.
The Reuters story is at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-tobacco-results/japan-tobacco-to-launch-new-smokeless-product-this-year-idUSKBN1FQ13Z.