Altria Group, Inc. (MO)

Altria sells tobacco and nicotine products to United States consumers aged 21 and over. It describes its direction as Moving Beyond Smoking: transitioning adult smokers to smoke-free products, competing for existing smoke-free nicotine consumers, and looking for growth beyond the United States and beyond nicotine. It operates primarily within the United States and generates substantially all of its revenue from domestic customers. At 31 December 2025 the reportable segments were smokeable products, oral tobacco products and e-vapor products.

The operating companies

Philip Morris USA makes and sells cigarettes. John Middleton, a subsidiary of Philip Morris USA, makes and sells machine-made large cigars. UST, through U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, makes and sells moist smokeless tobacco. Helix Innovations and its foreign affiliates make and sell oral nicotine pouches. NJOY makes and sells e-vapor products. Altria Group Distribution Company provides domestic sales and distribution to the operating companies, and Altria Client Services provides legal, regulatory, research and product development, consumer engagement, finance, human resources and external affairs support.

What sells and how much

Philip Morris USA is the largest cigarette company in the United States, and Marlboro, its principal brand, has been the largest-selling cigarette brand in the country for over 50 years. Cigarette shipment volume was 61.8 billion units in 2025, down 10.0% on 2024. Middleton's principal cigar brand is Black & Mild, and cigar shipment volume was approximately 1.8 billion units in 2025, up 1.8%. The oral tobacco segment covers the premium moist smokeless brands Copenhagen and Skoal, the value brand Red Seal, and on! oral nicotine pouches from Helix; its shipment volume was 732.4 million units in 2025, down 5.5%. NJOY's tobacco and menthol e-vapor products are covered by marketing granted orders from the Food and Drug Administration, but its principal product, NJOY ACE, is subject to an exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders from the U.S. International Trade Commission prohibiting its importation and sale in the United States.

The heated tobacco joint venture

At 31 December 2025 the company owned a 75% economic interest in Horizon Innovations, a joint venture with a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco holding the other 25%. Horizon handles United States marketing and commercialisation of heated tobacco stick products owned by either party, meaning a device that heats a consumable without burning it plus a consumable that meets the statutory definition of a cigarette. On authorisation by the Food and Drug Administration it becomes the exclusive route through which the two parties commercialise such products in the United States, with Japan Tobacco's subsidiary supplying Ploom devices and Philip Morris USA manufacturing Marlboro consumables. As of 25 February 2026 the joint venture had no products in the United States market.

Supply, distribution and competition

The tobacco subsidiaries sell principally to wholesalers, including distributors, and to large retail organisations such as chain stores. Philip Morris USA buys most of its burley and flue-cured leaf directly from domestic growers under a contract growing programme, plus some through leaf merchants; U.S. Smokeless Tobacco buys dark fire-cured, dark air-cured and burley leaf from domestic growers under its own contract programme; Middleton buys through leaf merchants without a growing programme; and Helix and NJOY buy tobacco-derived nicotine materials from suppliers. The market is described as highly competitive, turning on brand recognition and loyalty, product quality, taste, price, product development, marketing, packaging, distribution and promotion, with allowances, incentive items, price promotions, coupons and discounts used where the law permits.

Investments and people

The company holds equity method investments in Anheuser-Busch InBev and Cronos Group, accounted for with a one-quarter lag. It employed approximately 5,900 people at 31 December 2025, twenty-six percent of them hourly manufacturing employees who belong to labour unions under collective bargaining agreements, with long-term agreements that settle bargaining disputes through binding arbitration. The company notes that decreasing social acceptance of tobacco use may affect its ability to attract and keep staff, and says it manages that by targeting total compensation above the peer companies it competes with for talent.

From Altria Group's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing