said the head of the Ukrainian office, Maksym Barabash. “The Kharkiv factory, built in 2006, can produce 40 billion cigarettes annually. At that time, the Ukrainian market was larger and had large exports,” he stated.
The company’s representative noted that before the war, the factory worked at half capacity, producing 10 million cigarettes for export. The remaining 10 billion was intended for the domestic market. But because of the war, production decreased by almost 20%.
In addition, Philip Morris’s share shrank compared to competitors whose businesses were in safer locations and continued to operate. Currently, the company’s market share is 20%, while before the invasion it was 28.5%. The sales volume in Ukraine fell to about seven billion cigarettes per year, so the new factory requires less production capacity.