Philip Morris International

Sector: Consumer Defensive

Industry: Tobacco

Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) is a company that sells tobacco products. As one of the founding members of the group informally known as “Big Tobacco,” the company has in recent times diversified its products to include more health-conscious options like smoke-free devices, including heat-not-burn, vapor and oral nicotine products. Philip Morris is an American company that sells its wares in more than 180 countries around the globe. PMI has a legal office in New York City and its operational headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland. Despite the unfashionable reputation that smoking currently has, due to a worldwide move toward more healthy behaviors, PMI still frequently ranks in the top 200 of the Fortune 500 list of the biggest companies by total revenue. Still, the company does not enjoy the benefit of being a safe-haven stock in the ways it did in the past. With tobacco being the single greatest cause of preventable death globally, the company has been on the receiving end of litigious moves from aggrieved consumers and restrictive legislation from governments.