Shifting Philip Morris to the new a non-risk products doesn't mean that I will give market share to my competitors free of charge. In the markets where we are not present with IQOS yet or the other reduced-risk products, you still need to defend your share of the market. They still represent the bulk of our income, and so far they have financed the billions of dollars we have put behind these new products. But once we go national in a market, and absent capacity constraints, then you shift your resources and your focus to these new products.
Andre CalantzopoulosI think over time the fiscal environment on cigarettes will become different, and the regulatory environment has to differentiate the products. If that is at the expense of cigarettes, so be it - it's not a problem for me. But we need some logical forum where we don't talk ideology but rather we talk about what can really accelerate the conversion. If you do display bans everywhere in the world on cigarettes but you can display IQOS, that's a differentiating measure for me. Then I'm more than willing to accept these measures because they are really conducive to make people switch.
Andre CalantzopoulosA tobacco industry has been a fairly linear and predictable industry. You know what's going to happen every year. You know from time to time you are going to have a tax increase, you are going to have regulatory restriction, but, as it applies to everybody, I think we are doing very well. But now it's much more technology-driven. Competitors other than our traditional competitors can come in, whether legitimate or fly-by-night ones, and you have to anticipate all those things. The whole organization has to gear up to this new reality and these new competitive rules around it.
Andre CalantzopoulosThe potential of a zero-risk is in every market, because eventually I think people will switch to these products as they become available. There are two unmet needs in smokers: something that is much better for my health and something that bothers others much less or doesn't bother them. These are things cigarettes can't resolve. These new products are developed to address these needs.
Andre CalantzopoulosShifting Philip Morris to the new a non-risk products doesn't mean that I will give market share to my competitors free of charge. In the markets where we are not present with IQOS yet or the other reduced-risk products, you still need to defend your share of the market. They still represent the bulk of our income, and so far they have financed the billions of dollars we have put behind these new products. But once we go national in a market, and absent capacity constraints, then you shift your resources and your focus to these new products.
Andre CalantzopoulosInnovation, in the minds of people, cannot be something extremely cheap. If you are an average person and you hear that something that is much better than cigarettes comes to the market at the cheapest possible price, you'll not trust it. This is the reason we didn't initially manufacture in China, because you need to create that credibility. Over time you need to make the products available and affordable to different categories of people.
Andre Calantzopoulos