British Imperial Tobacco

The Imperial Tobacco Group PLC is the leading international tobacco company which manufactures, markets, distributes and sells a comprehensive range of cigarettes, tobaccos, cigars, rolling papers and tubes.

In 1890, James b. Duke of Durham, North Carolina merged the five largest tobacco companies in America to create the American Tobacco Company.

After having a monopoly on the American market, Duke went to England in 1901 and tried to take over the British tobacco market. In 1901 American Tobacco bought Ogden Ltd, one of the Britain’s leading tobacco manufacturers.

Duke’s purchase signaled his intentions not only of extending his operations beyond the American shore but also of capturing the market in Britain as well as Europe.

In response to this, thirteen English family-run tobacco companies formed together in December 1901 to create the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland Ltd.

This new formed company headed by W.D and H.O Wills Ltd. The Company's first Chairman was William Henry Wills of the Wills Company. A year later three more firms joined Imperial Tobacco.

In April 1902, it was announced that the Imperial Tobacco Company had entered North Carolina to start the tobacco war on Duke’s home territory.

The Imperial Tobacco was the dominant manufacturer in the United Kingdom market and was responsible for over one half of the total production in 1914.

Imperial Tobacco also owned tobacco plantations and shipment facilities in the United States. It had invested huge sums of money in marketing Virginia tobacco in Britain.

By 1939, 75 percent of the tobacco consumption in Britain was supplied by the Imperial Tobacco Company.
British Imperial Tobacco

Formation of American Tobacco Company

There were 119 tobacco factories in Virginia and North Carolina in 1840 and 348 in 1860.

On returning to his North Carolina farm from a Union prisoner-of-war-camp, Washington Duke built a company around the sale of tobacco products.

In 1880 the twenty-four-year old James Buchanan Duke was running Duke Sons and Company. By 1888 the firm of was producing 744 million cigarettes per year.

Americans adoption of the cigarette led to the proliferation of tobacco firms, and eventually the five leading producers of 1890 combined as the American Tobacco Company with Duke at the head.

By 1898 American Tobacco was selling almost 4 billion cigarettes per year and controlled virtually the entire cigarette industry in the United States.

At first, the American Tobacco Company had dabbled only in cheroots and other small cigars, but in 1901 it decided to move into the cigar business.

American Tobacco Company dominated the industry by acquiring the Lucky Strike Company and over 200 other rival firms.

By 1910 American Tobacco Company possessed 86 percent of the cigarette market, 85 percent of the plug market, 79 percent of the pipe tobacco market and 14 percent of the cigar market in the United States. 

Eventually, American Tobacco’s control over the American market led to its dissolution at the hands of the Justice Department of the federal government. The court order breakup of the American Tobacco Company in 1911 changed the industry from a monopoly to a oligopoly.

The company broke into several major companies: American Tobacco Company, R.J Reynolds, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, and Lorillard.

In 1969 American Brands became the parent company of American Tobacco Company.
Formation of American Tobacco Company