Key Facts

  • Tobacco use killed one hundred million people in the 20th century—and if current trends continue, it will kill one billion people in the 21st century2.
  • Almost one billion men (35 percent in developed countries and 50 percent in developing countries) and 250 million women (22 percent of women in developed countries and 9 percent in developing countries) smoke cigarettes3.
  • If current trends continue, 650 million people alive today will eventually die from tobacco-related diseases4.
  • Worldwide, over 15 billion cigarettes are smoked every day5.
  • Every day, some 80-100,000 young people around the world become addicted to tobacco. If current trends continue, 250 million children alive today will die from tobacco-related disease6.
  • China consumes more than 30 percent of the world's cigarettes, with almost 70 percent of males smoking. The top five cigarette-consuming countries are: China, United States, Russia, Japan and Indonesia7.
  • Philip Morris, British American Tobacco (BAT), and Japan Tobacco are the world's three largest multinational tobacco companies9.
  • In 2004, Philip Morris captured about one-sixth of the world cigarette market by operating in 160 countries and selling cigarettes worth more than $57 billion.10
  • China is the largest cigarette manufacturer, followed by the U.S.11

Sources
1 Dr. Judith Mackay and Dr. Michael Eriksen, The Tobacco Atlas, World Health Organization, Myriad Editions Limited, UK, 2006 -- http://www.who.int/tobacco/statistics/tobacco_atlas/en/
2 IARC, IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans: Tobacco smoke and involuntary smoking. Vol. 83. 2004, Lyon: IARCPress.
3 Dr. Judith Mackay and Dr. Michael Eriksen, The Tobacco Atlas, World Health Organization, Myriad Editions Limited, UK, 2006 -- http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas5.pdf
4 World Health Organization, World Health Report: Shaping the Future, 2003 -- http://www.who.int/whr/2003/en/index.html
5 Dr. Judith Mackay and Dr. Michael Eriksen, The Tobacco Atlas, World Health Organization, Myriad Editions Limited, UK, 2006 -- http://www.who.int/tobacco/statistics/tobacco_atlas/en/
6 The World Bank, Curbing the Epidemic, Governments and the Economics of Tobacco Control, World Bank Publications, Washington, 1999 -- http://www1.worldbank.org/tobacco/book/html/cover2a.html
7 Dr. Judith Mackay and Dr. Michael Eriksen, The Tobacco Atlas, World Health Organization, Myriad Editions Limited, UK, 2006 -- http://www.who.int/tobacco/statistics/tobacco_atlas/en/
8 The Framework Convention Alliance for Tobacco Control, A Guide to Domestic Implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Geneva, 2006
9 Dr. Judith Mackay and Dr. Michael Eriksen, The Tobacco Atlas, World Health Organization, Myriad Editions Limited, UK, 2006 -- http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas18.pdf
10 Dr. Judith Mackay and Dr. Michael Eriksen, The Tobacco Atlas, World Health Organization, Myriad Editions Limited, UK, 2006 -- http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas18.pdf
11 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Issues in the Global Tobacco Economy, Selected case studies, Rome, 2003 -- http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4997e/y4997e0g.htm