PMI just made Argentina its nicotine pouch showcase for Latin America
At its Technovation summit in Buenos Aires, Philip Morris said it has already launched pouches in Argentina and wants the rest of the region to swap prohibition for regulated availability.
Philip Morris International picked Buenos Aires for its Technovation smoke-free summit on October 7-8, and the message to Latin America was blunt: the region is moving from prohibition toward letting nicotine pouches and heated-tobacco products compete openly.
What happened
PMI has already launched nicotine pouches in Argentina and is preparing to roll out more smoke-free categories there, according to comments from company executives at the event. Can Kuterdem, PMI's president for Latin America and Canada, called Argentina a turning point for the region — shifting from more than a decade of prohibitions toward a framework that allows new nicotine categories backed by scientific evidence.
The figures PMI put on the table (the company's own numbers): more than $16 billion invested in smoke-free technologies, smoke-free products now at 42% of its global revenue, sold in over 100 markets, and used by more than 43 million adults. Nearly all of its R&D spending now goes to smoke-free categories.
Why it matters
Argentina just became PMI's showcase for its Latin America playbook: launch pouches, then lobby for clear rules on what can be sold and what consumers are told about it. The company's own research (presented at the summit by consultancy Povaddo) found that a large share of Latin American consumers — even smokers — still don't know how pouches or heated tobacco actually work. That low familiarity is exactly the gap a marketing-and-regulation push is designed to close.
For the pouch market, watch two things. First, whether other governments in the region follow Argentina's move from flat prohibition to regulated availability — that decides whether LatAm becomes a real growth market or a patchwork of bans. Second, whether PMI's pouch rollout in Argentina gets the same speed it gave ZYN in the US, where it became the category leader. PMI reports its smoke-free numbers every quarter, so the Argentina effect should show up in regional revenue within a few reporting cycles.
Compare ZYN and other PMI pouch options across retailers at PouchFinder.
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