Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. (PMFTC) president, Denis Gorkun, has announced the Philippine launch of the company’s smoke-free product, IQOS, in the first half of 2020.
Gorkan said they were confident that IQOS will offer Filipino smokers “a much, much better alternative” to smoking.
The initial target market in the Philippines are cigarette smokers who buy cigarettes in packs, which account for about 14% of the country’s estimated number of cigarette smokers.
Gorkan said that in the future the company will find a way to make IQOS accessible to those who buy per stick.
Gorkun also said taxation on e-cigarettes, or smoke-free products like IQOS, must be proportionate to the risks, citing studies by the US Food and Drug Administration, and the UK’s Department of Health declaring IQOS safer.
He added that Filipino smokers should be encouraged to switch to a much, much better alternative, which means the taxation must be risk-proportionate so as not to make the alternative to cigarettes expensive. “The taxation must be lower than cigarettes,” he said.