Key Points
- IQOS entered Kantar BrandZ’s Global Top 100 for the first time at No. 74.
- Kantar valued the IQOS brand at $36.634 billion and classified it in the Tobacco category.
- IQOS was one of only three newcomers to the 2026 Global Top 100.
- PMI says IQOS has more than 35 million users worldwide and surpassed $10 billion in annual net revenues within a decade.
2Firsts
September 2, 2026
According to Tunisian business publication Challenges TN on September 1, 2026, Philip Morris International’s (PMI) heated tobacco brand IQOS has entered the Kantar BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands for the first time, ranking No. 74. Kantar’s full 2026 ranking, released in May, values IQOS at $36.634 billion and identifies it as one of only three newcomers to this year’s Global Top 100.
The result marks IQOS’s first appearance in the Kantar BrandZ global ranking. Rather than a conventional brand award, BrandZ is a valuation system combining financial data with consumer brand-equity research, meaning the ranking represents Kantar’s estimate of the economic value of the IQOS brand rather than an assessment of product quality or tobacco-related risk.
IQOS Valued at $36.634 Billion
Kantar’s 2026 BrandZ report values IQOS at $36.634 billion, placing it No. 74 globally and categorizing the brand under Tobacco.
IQOS sits immediately behind L'Oréal Paris, valued at $36.854 billion, and just ahead of Morgan Stanley at $36.509 billion.
Because IQOS had not previously appeared in the Global Top 100, Kantar does not provide a year-on-year value change or ranking movement for the brand.
The full report shows that just three brands were newcomers to the Top 100 in 2026: Claude, IQOS and Charles Schwab.
Claude entered at No. 27 with a value of $96.577 billion, IQOS at No. 74 with $36.634 billion, and Charles Schwab at No. 98 with $26.083 billion.
Notably, Marlboro is the other tobacco-related brand in Kantar’s 2026 Global Top 100. Marlboro ranks No. 14 with a brand value of about $168.5 billion, while IQOS ranks No. 74 at $36.634 billion. Their presence in the same global ranking provides a direct comparison between a traditional cigarette brand and a heated tobacco brand within the broader consumer-brand landscape. Marlboro’s brand ownership varies by market, with the U.S. business operated by Altria’s Philip Morris USA and international markets associated with PMI.
Entry Threshold Reaches Record High
IQOS entered the ranking during a year of rapid overall growth in global brand valuations.
Kantar said the combined value of the 2026 Global Top 100 reached $13.1 trillion, up 22% year on year.
The research group said the threshold required to enter the Global Top 100 reached its highest level on record. Alongside three newcomers, four brands re-entered the ranking, while 70 brands increased in value from 2025.
Google ranked first with a brand value of approximately $1.485 trillion, followed by Apple at $1.380 trillion. Microsoft and Amazon ranked third and fourth respectively.
For the first time in BrandZ history, four brands were each valued above $1 trillion.
IQOS’s No. 74 position therefore comes in a year when both overall brand valuations and the competitive threshold for entering the Top 100 increased.
BrandZ Is Not a Revenue or Market-Capitalization Ranking
Kantar BrandZ is now in its 21st edition.
The 2026 global ranking draws on consumer research involving approximately 4.6 million respondents and more than 22,000 brands across 54 markets, combined with financial data used in the valuation process.
Unlike rankings based solely on company market capitalization or product revenues, BrandZ incorporates consumer perceptions and brand equity.
Kantar focuses on whether brands are meaningfully different — whether they meet consumer needs, stand apart from competitors and remain salient in their categories.
IQOS’s $36.634 billion valuation therefore should not be interpreted as its annual sales, nor as the market value of PMI’s IQOS business. It represents the brand value calculated under Kantar’s BrandZ methodology.
PMI Says IQOS Has More Than 35 Million Users
PMI formally acknowledged the BrandZ result on May 26 and linked the ranking to IQOS’s global expansion.
The company said IQOS had more than 35 million users worldwide, most of whom it said had fully switched away from cigarettes.
The user figure is a PMI disclosure rather than an independently measured Kantar BrandZ statistic.
PMI also said IQOS surpassed $10 billion in annual net revenues within 10 years of its inception. The company’s overall smoke-free business generated close to $17 billion in net revenues in 2025, with IQOS accounting for the large majority.
Oggie Kapetanovic, PMI’s President of Heat-Not-Burn Products, described the ranking as validation of the brand’s growth and said IQOS was developing beyond a product platform into a broader global consumer brand.
Those characterizations reflect PMI’s own assessment of the brand.
Heated Tobacco Brand Moves Into Broader Global Brand Ranking
IQOS began commercial rollout in 2014 and has since become one of the central brands in PMI’s smoke-free portfolio.
For the tobacco and nicotine industry, its first appearance in the BrandZ Global Top 100 is notable less as a conventional branding award than as the inclusion of a heated tobacco-focused brand in a valuation ranking spanning the world’s largest technology, financial services, consumer goods, retail and luxury brands.
IQOS is therefore being measured not only against other tobacco brands but within the broader global consumer-brand landscape.
The ranking provides another measure of how competition in the heated tobacco sector is expanding beyond shipment volumes, user numbers and market share toward the value of global brand assets themselves.
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Cover Image: Kantar
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