The news that two major international tobacco giants, Philip Morris International (PMI) and Altria, were negotiating a merger in the new tobacco market in the United States recently. And it attracted the attention of many investors.
Although no further information about the merger has been received from the two companies so far, the author found above photo online.
Is this PMI going to help Juul with marketing?
As can be seen from the photos, PMI added Juul electronic cigarette discount information to the Marlboro cigarette packaging, which means that the purchase of Juul electronic cigarettes in this packaging will get a $10 discount.
It is not surprising that there have been cases of promoting electronic cigarettes in cigarette packaging in the past. However, if this photo information is true, PMI not only did not promote its iQOS, but promoted Juul under Altria. Is it really going to merge?
Some people may wonder why Altria merged with PMI. Isn’t the former the parent company of the latter?
In fact, 11 years ago, Altria stripped the overseas tobacco sector of PMI for fear that the United States would sue the tobacco group and hope to increase shareholder value. After the independent portal, PMI succeeded in opening up overseas markets, growing faster than even the former parent company could not catch up with.
According to the Dr. V Report, PMI and Altria will both make substantial profits from “lower costs” and “higher yields” when international tobacco giants are rushing to develop harmless tobacco. This makes the seemingly incredible merger scenario actually logical.
The merger agreement will not only bring benefits to PMI, but also resolve the competitive relationship with Juul into a win-win situation. IQOS is the world’s largest heat not burn brand, which has been legally landed in 47 countries and regions, but in the “home” United States, it has just passed the FDA PMTA. The market share of new tobacco in the United States is much lower than that of Juul.
We speculate that this photo may reveal not only Altria’s determination to transmission from tobacco products to new types of tobacco, but also its renewed partnership with PMI to promote Juul‘s electronic cigarettes in the consumer market.
