Philip Morris aims to top Korea's heated-tobacco market with Iluma

Philip Morris International Inc., a major US tobacco maker, aims to regain the throne in South Korea's competitive heat-not-burn cigarette market with new products.

Philip Morris’s Korean unit unveiled a plan on Wednesday to launch the Iqos Iluma One later this month, the company's cheapest model of advanced non-combustible tobacco device so far. Philip Morris Korea Inc. has been selling higher-end models such as the Iluma and the Iluma Prime in major cities like Seoul and Busan since late 2022.

The company plans to begin selling all of its models nationwide in tandem with the IIuma One's launch.

“That would help us reclaim our market dominance nationwide,” said Lee Hong-seok, a general manager at Philip Morris Korea.

The Iluma series adopts the bladeless smartcore induction system and does not produce tobacco residue, which means users do not need to clean the device.

COMPETITION HEATS UP

Philip Morris, which introduced heat-not-burn products to Korea in 2017, gave up the No. 1 spot in the domestic heated tobacco market to KT&G Corp. last year.

KT&G dominated the sector with an estimated share of 50%, while Philip Morris held about 40%.

Competition is expected to further intensify with BAT Rothmans, British American Tobacco’s unit in Korea, set to release a new product of glo, its tobacco heating device later this month.

KT&G launched a new device dubbed the lil AIBLE in November last year.

The country's heat-not-burn cigarette market is expected to grow steadily, with sales of tobacco sticks forecast to rise to 2.4 trillion won ($1.9 billion) by 2025 from 2 trillion won in 2021, according to market research company Euromonitor International.

Write to Jiyoon Yang at yang@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.