Is Indonesia The Next Big Market For Cigarette Brands?

We all know that in America there is new form of racism.  The racism against smokers.  People tend to look at us funny and not want anything to do with us when we are in a public location.  Don’t believe me, just go to LA and light up a smoke and see what happens.  People give you looks like you are the devil himself.  I’ve seen it first hand.  I actually had to go to the bathroom to see if I had something written on my face or something.

Because of this a lot of the big brands are looking abroad at their new markets to find the new groups that are still smoking and not apart of our nanny state.

Indonesia is the 5th biggest market for cigarettes, behind China, U.S., Russia and Japan.  But the thing is that Indonesians aren’t really that fond of the regular cigarette they would rather have a clove cigarette.  They tend to smoke blends of tobacco and cloves called a kreteks.

Marlboro now has their hand in this pie with the take over of the controlling interest in Sampoerna with a big check of $5.2 billion.  This actually make a new record for the Indonesian culture in that this is the biggest price a foreign company has ever paid for a Indonesian company.

Once this was completed and everything was put in place, they rolled out a new cigarette called the Marlboro Mix 9.  Which is actually a lot stronger than any other cigarette they currently sell in America.