India has refused to relax its ban on e-cigarettes, which would have allowed heatless tobacco products, dealing a blow to a long private lobbying campaign by New Delhi’s Philip Morris International to allow such devices.
India banned e-cigarettes, including heated tobacco products, in 2019. With more than 100 billion cigarettes sold annually, it is the seventh largest cigarette market by volume, with tobacco killing more than one million people each year.
Philip Morris, the world’s most valuable tobacco company, was hoping India could be a major market for its heated tobacco device, IQOS, which the company says is less harmful to health than smoking.
“The Government of India is not considering rescinding, amending or relaxing this ban,” the health ministry said in response to Reuters questions about Philip Morris’ lobbying.
“India is committed to evidence-based tobacco control and cessation measures,” it said in a statement, adding that the law on e-cigarettes clearly bans devices that do not burn with heat, and that will remain the case.
A Reuters review of confidential company papers from 2021 to 2025 shows the Marlboro-maker privately lobbied top Indian officials and a parliamentary panel to consider the science behind devices like IQOS, conduct research on it and exempt heat-not-burn products from the ban.
Philip Morris executives also met with several state government officials in Davos in January to discuss how the company can create long-term value in the tobacco sector using products like IQOS, photos on LinkedIn show.
A spokesperson for Philip Morris did not comment on the ministry’s statement, but said it “regularly interacts with governments around the world, including in major international forums such as Davos, to discuss how smoke-free products can advance public health.”
Reuters is the first to report India’s decision and details of Philip Morris’s lobbying.
In an interview with Reuters on Friday, the company’s Chief Executive Jacek Olzak said he had spoken with various people in India, saying it was “illogical” to close the market to smoking alternatives such as heated tobacco and vapes, but not to cigarettes.
It is unclear whether any other companies are lobbying against the ban on e-cigarettes in India. Philip Morris says it has a 76% share of the global market for heated tobacco products.
IQOS boom
Euromonitor estimates that Philip Morris will have a 7.6% share of India’s cigarette market in 2024, up from just 1.75% in 2019.
Its rival British American Tobacco has a stake in India’s ITC, which dominates the market.
Jefferies analyst Andrei Andon-Ionita said the IQOS launch in India would have given PMI a way to capture a larger share of the market, offering “the next phase of the growth story” for the product as other key markets mature.
Launched in 2014, IQOS has more than 35 million users worldwide and is Philip Morris’ flagship smoking alternative, which it says has been a hit in countries such as Japan.
Some regulators, such as the US FDA, have concluded that there may be public health benefits if smokers use IQOS instead of cigarettes, but the World Health Organization has warned about the dangers posed by heated tobacco.
India’s 2019 ban closed the doors to many products from companies like vape makers Juul and Philip Morris.
Olzak said India’s decision to ban smoking alternatives ignores science and data that shows smoking rates decline when alternatives are available.
lobbying privately
Nearly 151 billion IQOS units were sold in 79 markets last year.
The papers reveal that Philip Morris led a four-year-long campaign to pressure Indian officials and a parliamentary panel on health to allow heated tobacco devices.
In a 2023 letter, then-Chief Strategy Officer Ankur Modi asked India to think about tackling smoking-related harm through options “similar to harm reduction policy for HIV/AIDS”, including measures such as promoting condoms.
The papers also propose bringing in Philip Morris scientists and experts, such as former US FDA officials, to present data and global experience to show how such devices “make lives better”.
“PMI is deeply committed to and invested in India’s future,” the company said in a letter to the health secretary in November, demanding a review of the scientific data on heated tobacco products by the Indian Council of Medical Research.
In a statement, the state-run ICMR told Reuters it was “not considering or conducting any research on heated tobacco products”.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Emma Rumney; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
