Current Position
The tobacco industry generally refers to the companies involved in the manufacture of cigarettes, cigars, snuff, chewing and pipe tobacco. The largest tobacco company in the world by volume is China National Tobacco Co.. Following extensive merger and acquisition activity in the 1990s and 2000s, international markets are dominated by five firms, in alphabetical order: Altria, British American Tobacco (represented in the U.S. market by a 42% stake in Reynolds American, Inc.), Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, and Philip Morris International. Altria was formerly called the Philip Morris Cos, and it still owns the Philip Morris tobacco business in the United States, but Philip Morris International has been fully independent since 2008. In most countries these companies either have long established dominance, or have purchased the major domestic producer or producers, often a former state monopoly. The United States has one other substantial independent firm, Lorillard. India has its own major player, ITC Limited. There are a small number of surviving state monopolies, and some small independent firms.
Tobacco advertising is becoming increasingly restricted around the world.
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“The first opinion that occurs to us when we are suddenly asked about something is usually not our own but only the current one pertaining to our class, position, or parentage; our own opinions seldom swim on the surface.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)