Buy Philip Morris stock. It’s about to get hot to smoke

09.01.2023

The mainstream cigarette business is slowly dying, but the tobacco giant isn’t about to go quietly into the night. The company just announced two deals that will keep it healthy in the coming years.

The last decade has not been kind to the tobacco business. The number of traditional cigarettes smoked worldwide has dropped from 5.23 billion in early 2018 to about 4.69 billion five years later, even as companies have raised prices to compensate for fewer packs sold.

Even without the burden of the U.S. cigarette business-it was Altria Group MO +2.38% (ticker: MO)- Philip Morris (PM) stock suffered.

However, Philip Morris is a very different company than it was just a few months ago. The November acquisition of Swedish Match further solidified its global leadership in oral nicotine and added to its portfolio of so-called low-risk products that do not require users to burn tobacco. The deal comes a month after the company paid Altria $2.7 billion for the rights to sell Philip Morris’ flagship IQOS product in the United States, marking PM’s first return to the domestic market since the two companies split in 2008.