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Philip Morris Readies Global Blitz of New Products

Marlboro Intense, a half-inch shorter than regular Marlboros, offers smokers seven potent puffs apiece, versus the usual eight or so milder draws. The idea behind Intense is to appeal to customers who, due to indoor smoking bans, want to dash outside for a nicotine hit. It's likely to be part of a blitz of new smoking products by Phillip Morris International once the Altria board approves a long-awaited decision to split PMI from Philip Morris USA.

As early as March, PMI could be operating as an independent company--the third most profitable consumer-goods concern in the world after Procter & Gamble and Nestlé. The move will make it easier for the tobacco behemoth to market an array of new smoking concepts--each targeted to different foreign populations--who, collectively are expected to smoke 5.2 trillion cigarettes this year.

Among the products in test is a hand-held electronic smoking device called the Heatbar, which emits less smoke than a regular cigarette. Another is Marlboro Wides--an extra-thick cigarette whose package flips open from one side. To appeal to customers in some markets, the company is making sweet-smelling cigarettes--with twice the tar and nicotine levels of a conventional cigarette.

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