SEOUL, May 17 (Korea Bizwire) – Philip Morris International Inc. said Wednesday its new e-cigarette device that contains tobacco leaves will go on sale in South Korea starting early next month. The local unit of the global tobacco company, Philip Morris Korea, said IQOS, the brand of its new tobacco product, will be available in Seoul [...]
SEOUL, South Korea, March 23 (Korea Bizwire) – Graphic warning labels printed on tobacco packages will now be seen on packages of cigarettes sold at duty free shops. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MOSF) announced Wednesday that cigarette products exported from foreign countries for sale at duty free stores will also be subject to the [...]
SEOUL, March 14 (Korea Bizwire) – KT&G Corp., South Korea’s largest tobacco product manufacturer, said Tuesday it posted solid profitability last year due to growing demand abroad despite falling domestic consumption. The company said its sales rose to 2.96 trillion won (US$2.57 billion) in 2016, up from 2.82 trillion won in the previous year. The [...]
SEJONG, March 13 (Korea Bizwire) – Sales of cigarettes in South Korea fell for three straight months in February following the government push to imprint health warning graphics on the outside of packages, government data showed Monday. Some 240 million 20-packs of cigarettes were sold last month, down 14 percent from a year earlier, according [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 31 (Korea Bizwire) – It has been two years since the Korean government raised its tobacco tax by 80 percent. Whether it helped to promote public health and bring down the smoking rate is still open to debate, but it was undoubtedly a lucrative decision for both the government and cigarette companies, especially [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – KT&G, the leading tobacco company in Korea, has just released a press release boasting of its 2016 overseas cigarette sales, quickly drawing criticism given the fact that a large portion of the earnings were from less developed countries. According to company data, KT&G saw overseas sales increase by 4.7 [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Korea Bizwire) – It’s already two weeks into the new year, which means that more than a few smokers will have failed, once again, with their resolution to butt out. Cessation clinics in Korea tend to boom in early January, with smokers excited about the new, healthy lives that they’re about to [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Korea Bizwire) – Members of the “I Love Smoking” group gathered outside the National Assembly building in Seoul Thursday demanding that the government repeal Korea’s cigarette price hike, which took effect in January 2015, and raised cigarette prices by 2,000 won ($1.76) per pack. Protestors held pickets alleging that the tobacco policy [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – A recent report by the National Assembly Budget Office forecasted that the upcoming mandate to include warning images on cigarette packages will help reduce Korea’s tobacco consumption, though the effects will be “limited”. According to the NABO report National Tax Income Forecast 2016 – 2020, total shipments of cigarettes [...]
SEJONG, Sept. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – Cigarette taxes have long been used to discourage citizens from smoking and bolster government coffers. Either way, they’re usually a win-win strategy for both parties. The Korean government raised its cigarette taxes in 2015 by almost doubling the price of cigarettes from 2,500 or 2,700 won ($2.23) per pack [...]