Imperial Tobacco is delighted to present two new variants of its Player’s cigarettes

On April, 15, Imperial Tobacco, a Bristol-based cigarette company, made an announcement about the introduction of two new variants added to its Player’s portfolio. From mid-April Player’s Smooth will be sold in convenience stores in King Size and Super King Size 19s, showing the increasing popularity of adult smokers who look for a quality blend cigarette, at affordable price.

Player’s Smooth King Size cigarette pack

The sub-economy sector is supposed to represent about 8% of the whole cigarette market by the end of 2013. This sector has grown by a third, every year, and is without question the UK’s fastest boosting price sector.

Presently smooth versions account for 38% of the sub-economy sector and the two new Player’s Smooth versions have been created by the world’s fourth-biggest cigarette maker to indicate the needs of adult smokers.

Player’s Smooth is available in a new up-to-date pack style to attract current tobacco customers. Around 60% of sub-economy consumers choose the 19 pack formats. Player’s Smooth King Size and Super King Size 19’s provide smokers with the same top quality and value for money for which Player’s is prominent.

Amy Kiss, head of consumer marketing at Imperial Tobacco, says: “Imperial Tobacco”, being the UK’s No.1 tobacco company, performs constant and intensive consumer analysis to confirm that the company’s category-leading range displays the growing preferences of UK adult smokers. Value-seeking is the major trend in the cigarette category. More than 70% of independent tobacco retailers currently selling Player’s and new Player’s Smooth will offer significant benefit options for retailers.”

Imperial Tobacco manufactures more than 300 billion cigarettes annually. The tobacco company is the owner of 51 factories around the world and its tobacco products are available in over 150 countries. Imperial is the maker of such famous brands as Davidoff, West, and Gauloises Blondes.

Earlier in March this year, Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) declared that the JT Group has finalized the buying of Al Nakhla Tobacco Company S.A.E. and Al Nakhla Tobacco Company

The buying was declared in the Company’s November 16, 2012 declaration, “JT to buy a leading hookah tobacco company.”

Nakhla Mint Flavour Tobacco

Nakhla is one of the major producers of hookah tobacco around the world with an important presence in its local market. It has headquarters and is the owner of two factories in Cairo and Shebin El Kom, Egypt.

This tobacco company makes hookah tobacco export supplies to more than 80 countries, mainly in the Middle Eastand North Africa where such hookah has a deep rooted history. Nakhla’s overall sales volume was around 24,000 tons in 2011.

The decsion to buy Nakhla was at a high single digit multiple of Nakhla’s actual revenue before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in 2011, as primarily declared. The buying is supposed to have a minor impact on the Group’s consolidated performance, income and balance sheet.

In the worldwide tobacco business, the Group continues improving Japan Tobacco International’s (JTI) business foundations with a total plan to increase growth.

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Caused by the diverse conditions in the different tobacco growing regions, tobacco leaves differ in size, thickness, colour, and flavour. Factors like the environment, the leaf’s position on the stalk, harvesting, drying, handling and processing, all have an effect on the quality of the leaf and finally the smoking product. The sugar and nicotine proportions of the leaf charge to the overall aroma and flavour of the tobacco leaf. The quality of the leaf is identified by its colour, structure, size, strength, flavour, aroma, rate of burn and processing qualities. Quality is indicated in grades. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) identifies 117 official tobacco grades.

Types of tobacco and cigarettes

There are actually generally four types of tobacco: Virginia, American blend, dark and oriental cigarettes. The latter two, dark and oriental have lost ground to the first two. Virginia cigarettes are made practically totally from flue-cured Virginia tobaccos. They are well-known in the UK and in its former colonies. The American blend is presently the most popular type of cigarettes. Its world market share remains growing. The key tobacco ingredients of the American blend are flue-cured Virginia (around 50%), Burley and Oriental (about 12%). Furthermore, each cigarette brand needs a specific blend of tobaccos (and other components) to offer it its featured taste and to distinguish from its opponents.

Virginia flue-cured is therefore the key base of cigarette tobacco nowadays. Its share in overall unmanufactured tobacco has raised due to the use of Virginia and American Blend cigarettes. Originally from the (US) state of Virginia, currently it is harvested in many countries. US leaf is regarded to be the ideal component for providing quality, flavour and aroma to cigarettes but it is high-priced. Its high price (compared to non-US tobaccos) was once warranted by its excellent quality, but the quality of leaf from other countries has increased. Therefore it is no longer as important as it was for companies of quality cigarettes to use a high ratio of US tobaccos in their mix. However, demand for US tobaccos is still significant. Producers are unwilling to change the blend of tobaccos for fear of modifying the taste and losing true customers. For existing brands, modifications in the sources of supply will appear progressively (offering a degree of stability to the world tobacco trade). A more quick method of reducing the use of costly leaf is by including less of it in new brands or new versions of the general brand (e.g. in light cigarettes).

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Cigarettes have been stolen from a shop in an armed robbery in north Belfast.

Just before 21:00 GMT on Saturday, two masked men, one of them armed with a knife, entered the shop on the Cliftonville Road.

They threatened two female members of staff with the knife. Neither woman was injured.

The robbers, one of the whom was wearing a cream jacket and blue jeans; the other dark clothing, then escaped towards Cliftonville Circus.

Police have appealed for witnesses to contact them.

In December 2012, Australia introduced ban on tobacco branding becoming the first country to launch plain cigarette packaging

No Smoking

According to its plain-packaging law, all cigarettes are offered for sale in standardised, drab-coloured packs with graphic pictures of tobacco-related illnesses on the front and back. Under its supporters, pictures of rotted lungs and charred teeth are not the pictures Marlboro Man or Joe Camel want to project.

After Australia’s decision, New Zealand has made an announcement it would follow suit. France and Britain are also looking at similar actions.

Of the four cigarette firms that deal with most of the world’s trade outside China – Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco – only Imperial still gets most of its revenue from so-called adult markets such as Western Europe.

Dr Sanjay Basu decided to foresee the effects of smoking on future TB rates with colleagues from the University of California. They stated that most new tuberculosis cases will be in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia, all big tobacco markets.

In 2012, Brazil – BAT’s single greatest market by income – banned flavoured cigarettes such as menthol becoming the first country to do this.

It also raised cigarette taxes. In Uruguay, graphic warnings must currently cover 80 % of a cigarette packet, while smoking outdoors is prohibited near hospitals and schools.

Big tobacco markets such as Russia, Turkey and Indonesia have also started to tighten tobacco rules and increase taxes.

Unsurprisingly cigarette firms are fighting back, especially against rules that considerably minimize their ability to connect with consumers through brands.

One result of tighter global tobacco rules has been cigarette firms investing in less-harmful alternatives, such as electronic or e-cigarettes.

In 2011 BAT’s new chief executive, Nicandro Durante, introduced Nicoventures, a £100m investment into cigarette alternatives such as nicotine vaporisers and inhalers.

Philip Morris, the manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes, intends to release what it identifies as a healthier variation of its flagship brand in 2016.

But the challenges remain powerful. In the US a federal court lately prohibited the government from demanding tobacco companies to place health warnings on packs by reason of that they broke the companies’ right to free speech.

Subsequently, China, where about a third of the world’s smokers live and the state has big investments in cigarette makers, the enforcement of smoking bans outside the main cities is lax.

Governments, especially in emerging markets, will continue having to stabilize the advantages of tobacco’s tax earnings with the costs related to treating sick smokers.

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Korea’s top cigarette maker, KT&G, continues to be the leading player in the native market over global companies

In 2012, KT&G kept 62% of the market share.

Esse Golden Leaf cigarettes

Even after the government started out the tobacco industry in 1988, the company never lost its position to worldwide rivals such as Phillip Morris International, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International.

KT&G refers its competitiveness to its high quality products and growth in abroad sales.

“The company is very glad that it has performed so well and never lost position to the international rivals,” KT&G said.

As outlined by KT&G, preserving such a stronghold is exceptional when a Korea’s cigarette market is confronted with free and open rivalry.

For example, when Spanish firm Altadis worked with Imperial Tobacco Group in 2007, its market share decreased by 20%. In Turkey, its state-run company Tekel was purchased by British American Tobacco in 2008 and its shares slipped by 30%.

KT&G addresses to maintenance of the quality of its products, such as its flagship brands: This, Time, Esse, Season and Raison.

Every stage of the production process is supervised and the product is properly reviewed twice before it is proved for sales. Quality-control managers are demanded to print their names on each pack of cigarettes to assure its quality.

The firm also presents new inventive products. One of them is Raison Cafe, a new hazelnut coffee-flavored cigarette in the Raison range.

KT&G as well focused international consumers to increase its sales, which jumped to $634 million in 2012, up 1,713% from $37,000 in 2000. Of its brands sold abroad, Esse led the world’s super-slim market with sales of over 50 billion cigarettes globally in 2012 alone.

The former state-run firm, which controled tobacco and ginseng, extended its business to real estate, food and beverages, biomedical technology and pharmaceutical products since it was privatized in 2002.

Its sales then increased from 2.03 trillion won in 2002 to 3.98 trillion won in 2012, while its net revenue more than increased twofold from 586 billion won to 1.03 trillion won over the same period.

KT&G was mentioned on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) for the third consecutive year in 2012, a family of indexes measuring the sustainability of the biggest 2,500 companies listed on the Dow Jones Global Total Stock Market Index.