Altria Premium Drives 85% of Cigarette Profit: Can This Hold?
Altria Group is focusing on its premium cigarette segment, which generates 85% of profitability, as consumers shift toward discount offerings. Marlboro maintained its 59.6% premium segment share but saw overall cigarette market share decline 1.5 points to 39.5%. The company is expanding its discount brand Basic to capture trade-down demand while protecting Marlboro pricing power, with smokeable adjusted OCI rising 2.4% to $3.02 billion.