Global Tobacco Epidemic: Key Facts

  • Tobacco use killed one hundred million people in the 20th century.  If current trends continue, tobacco will kill one billion people in the 21st century1.
  • 35 percent of men in developed countries and 50 percent in developing countries smoke. 22 percent of women in developed countries and 9 percent in developing countries smoke2.
  • Every day, 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 diseases3.
  • Every minute 12 million cigarettes are smoked around the world4.
  • China consumes more than 35 percent of the world's cigarettes5, with almost 60 percent of males smoking6. The top five cigarette-consuming countries are China, Russia, United States, Japan and Indonesia7.
  • China is the largest cigarette manufacturer, followed by Russia and the United States8.
  • Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco are the four largest multi-national tobacco companies in the world. The largest state tobacco monopoly is the China National Tobacco Corporation which has the largest share of the global market among all companies9.

Sources

  1. WHO. Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008: The MPOWER package. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2008.
  2. Shafey O, Eriksen M, Ross H, Mackay J. The Tobacco Atlas 3rd Ed. Atlanta, GA: American Cancer Society. Bookhouse Group, Inc. 2009.
  3. The World Bank, Curbing the Epidemic, Governments and the Economics of Tobacco Control, World Bank Publications, Washington, 1999.
  4. Shafey  et al. 2009.
  5. Euromonitor International [database online]. London: Euromonitor; c2010 [cited 2010 June 23]. Industry Reports: Tobacco-China.
  6. Yang G, Ma J, Zhou L. Smoking and passive smoking in Chinese. Chinese Journal of Epidemiology. February 2005; 26(2):78-81.
  7. Euromonitor International. 2010.
  8. Euromonitor International. 2010.
  9. Shafey  et al. 2009