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

Owen Bennett: Great, fantastic. And just – sorry, a follow-up, the question on the PMTA was not for ILUMA, I think previously for VEEV you said, you targeted first half of ’23, just any update on VEEV, PMTA submission?.

Jacek Olczak: Yes as I think, we’re also thinking about the 2023, but now having also the ZYN and knowing what ILUMA can do and knowing that before we also need to make sure that we have a right PMTA submission strategy, right, it was an effort behind each of them and we need to prioritize, but the – I mean the way we are thinking, we are – sorry thinking, is more than a thinking, we are working on bringing our P4 to the U.S. as well.

Owen Bennett: Great, thanks guys, appreciate it.

Jacek Olczak: Thank you, Owen.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Andrei Condrea with UBS.

Andrei Condrea: Hi everyone, thank you for taking my question, just one from me.

Jacek Olczak: Hi Andrei.

Andrei Condrea: Sticking to €“ hi, sticking to U.S. IQOS. We know that the U.S. menthol ban from the FDA proposed standards allows – potentially will allow for some exceptions to it. And thinking that your IQOS has the MRTP designation, which is rather unique versus all its peers, would — were you factoring this in when you set out your ambition of I believe 10% market share by 2030 if I’m not mistaken?

Jacek Olczak: Yes, you were – I think you’re quoting my words, this is Jacek here. Yes, I still do believe that IQOS by 2030 knowing how it performs on the many other international markets. The 10% is not out of – it can be a realistic ambitious – ambition or realistic dream. Now to be very frank, when we look into this, we have not been trying to factor being that there might be some flavors or menthol bans on other products. But you rightly noticed that IQOS today is two variants of IQOS outdoor iced with the menthol flavor, will this be an accelerating factor or not? Look I mean the future will tell, but I still believe that IQOS as is in the current environment due to its strength and the satisfaction it gives to smokers, et cetera has the – that big potential in from the person.

Andrei Condrea: I see very clear. Thank you.

Jacek Olczak: Thank you, Andrei.

Operator: We’ll take our last question from Jared Dinges with JPMorgan.

Jared Dinges: Yes, thanks. Hi, guys.

Jacek Olczak: Thank you, hi.

Jared Dinges: A couple from me please, first, given the CapEx, step-up in CapEx that you expect for this year, I just wanted to ask, how should we be thinking about CapEx levels beyond ’23? Is next year kind of a one off given the ZYN international expansion plans?

Emmanuel Babeau: Look I think, you should expect us of course to accompany the growth we are growing volume within more capacities, so the CapEx will reflect that. There is certainly, when it comes to ILUMA, a moment where we build the capacity for ILUMA and that is translating into a significant investment. So you see that in the 1.3. I would say, we are going to certainly regularly invest on the capacity for the Swedish Match overall business, so I’m not able to get at that stage. I’m not giving guidance on ’24. I certainly believe that there is this transition moment where we are building the capacity on ILUMA then of course that will be accompanying the growth of ILUMA and – and we are very ambitious, as you know, on growing overall product.