While consumption is leveling off and even decreasing in some countries, worldwide more people are smoking, and smokers are smoking more cigarettes. The numbers of smokers will increase mainly due to expansion of the world’s population. By 2030 there will be at least another 2 billion people in the world. Even if prevalence rates fall, the absolute number of smokers will increase. The expected continuing decrease in male smoking prevalence will be offset by the increase in female smoking rates, especially in evolving countries.
The consumption of tobacco has reached the proportions of a global epidemic. Tobacco companies are cranking out cigarettes at the rate of five and a anal trillion a year – nearly cigarettes tort every man, woman, and child the planet. Cigarettes account for the largest share of manufactured tobacco products, 96 percent of total value sales. Asia, Australia and the Far East are by far the largest consumers (2,71 5 billion cigarettes), followed by the Americas (745 billion), Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Economies (631 billion) and Western Europe (606 lion).
