Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

But we shouldn’t just look at the investment from the lenses of IQOS, because part of the investments, which we already started, once we committed to make this year, I believe will also benefit further growth opportunity for ZYN, okay, for Swedish Match. So it’s not that we’re really running business – two separate type of a businesses. We try to look at this from the leveraging and further enhancing the capabilities of Swedish Match and I believe the opportunities for ZYN in the U.S., they had a spectacular or phenomenal growth, depends which adjective you like better. But I think, there is more to come on this one. So the way we’re looking at allocating the results is that, it is not just going to prepare us for the IQOS stake back in ’24, but also in the meantime, can further – can be a further boost to the ZYN.

Now, to your question also about the future rollout of the IQOS alone in the U.S., I think September when we meet, I hope during the Investors Day, we will be in a positions to give a more precise plan. So we obviously taking considerations the expected timelines vis a vis from FDA. We said that we’re going to file IQOS ILUMA which is our – the best flagship and the best propositions we have today. And obviously, our objective – prime objective would be to enter markets, U.S. markets with a very big momentum coming from international on the best what we have, but I think, by September, this year, we should have more details and more visibility about this.

Bonnie Herzog: Okay, that’s super helpful. I appreciate it.

Emmanuel Babeau: Thank you, Bonnie.

Jacek Olczak: Thank you, Bonnie.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Gaurav Jain with Barclays.

Gaurav Jain: Hi, good morning. So the first is on the step up in cigarette pricing, so it was 5% last years, you are saying it will be 6% in FY ’23. Now Japan had 5% pricing last year, this year it will be 0, so clearly ex-Japan cigarette pricing is accelerating from four to seven approximately. So, where exactly is this biggest step-up happening in cigarette pricing?

Jacek Olczak: Japan, you pretty good single out Japan in this case, right, this is the biggest pricing from the unknow, right and it’s difficult to make any assumptions in Japan, but we have already this year working pretty well with the good results on the – reversing the pricing trend in Indonesia. As you may recall, and I believe we’re really turning the corner in Indonesia which always due to volume underlying size of the and the weight of the business to us is very important. I think, we have a stronger Philippines, plus the European markets also come with a strong pricing. So that 6%, which we assume in the – for this year is just the reflection of this. Now depends what’s happened in Japan. I mean, all of these things will be coming on the top, but actually Japan from the large geographies is the under market when visibility for obvious reason is very limited to.

Gaurav Jain: Sure, thank you. And then on this EU heated tobacco flavor ban, which is expected to come later this year, how should we think about it? And how is it factored in your guidance?

Jacek Olczak: I mean, it’s one of the events which nobody ever experienced. We have a – some sort of similarities with the flavor bans including menthol on the combustible cigarettes you may recall few years ago. And frankly speaking, that has not had any material sort of a impact on the cigarette volume, so I think here – okay we will see, what’s going to happen. We think, it’s going to be manageable.

Gaurav Jain: Sure, thank you so much.

Jacek Olczak: Thank you, Gaurav.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Pamela Kaufman with Morgan Stanley.

Pamela Kaufman: Hi, good morning.