Analysis of Philip Morris International’s ‘aspirational’ target for its 2025 cigarette shipments

Abstract

BackgroundPhilip Morris International (PMI) claims to be transforming and has committed to a ‘smoke-free’ future. In 2020, it announced an ‘aspirational’ target for reduced cigarette shipments by 2025.MethodsPMI cigarette shipment data are taken from PMI quarterly financial reports 2008–2023. Trends in these data before and after the 2020 announcement are analysed using linear regression, and auto regressive integrated moving average and error, trend, seasonal time-series models to assess if PMI’s 2025 target would be met on pre-existing trends, and if the trend changed after the announcement. These trends are also compared with the global retail market for cigarettes, using sales data from Euromonitor.ResultsFindings were consistent across all three models. PMI’s shipment target of 550 billion cigarette sticks by 2025 would readily have been met given pre-existing shipment trends. Following the 2020 announcement, the decline in PMI cigarette shipments stalled markedly with a statistically significant change in trend (p<0.001). The current and projected trend to 2025 is consistent with no further decline in cigarette volumes, meaning PMI is unlikely to hit its target. This mirrors a global pattern in which declines in cigarette sales have stalled since 2020.ConclusionsPMI’s 2025 target was not ‘aspirational’ but highly conservative—it would have been met based on pre-existing trends in declining cigarette shipments. Yet PMI will nonetheless fail to meet that target providing evidence it is not transforming. Stalling of the decline of PMI and global cigarette sales raises significant concerns about progress in global tobacco control.