Anti-smoking campaigners say cuts aim to get more smoking before ban bites
The tobacco price war is being extended from premium brands to cheap cigarettes - a move anti- tobacco campaigners condemned as aimed at getting more people to take up the habit before a smoking ban in restaurants dents sales.
Industry sources said the price of the Philip Morris brand Next will drop $4, to $20. Last week British American Tobacco launched a short-term promotion offering a twin pack of its low-priced Winfield Super Lights Menthol for $44. One pack costs $24.
Philip Morris would not say whether it would be cutting more prices. The price war began this month when it cut $2 off the price of premium brands Marlboro and Virginia Slims, which now cost $30 a pack. Its main competitor, British American Tobacco Hong Kong, responded by cutting the prices of its Kent and Capri brands by a similar amount, to $30-$32.
A Philip Morris International spokeswoman said demand for low-priced cigarettes was rising. They account for more than 30 per cent of tobacco sales in Hong Kong.
'Having experienced a poor economy, smokers began to start smoking cheaper cigarettes,' she said. 'The market share of lower- priced cigarettes enjoyed high growth, with a double-digit increase in percentage.'