Marlboro vs. Camel | Cigarette Brand Comparison

WARNING: Cigarettes are addictive.

Marlboro and Camel are the first- and third-largest cigarette brands in the United States, and the flagship brands of the two biggest US tobacco companies: Marlboro from Philip Morris USA (Altria), Camel from R.J. Reynolds (British American Tobacco). Camel is the older brand, the first cigarette sold and advertised nationally, from 1913; Marlboro is the bigger one, the top US brand since 1975 with about four in ten cigarettes sold. Both are premium brands with large style ranges, 50 and 46 in the Oregon directory. This page compares them on the public record: ownership, share, styles, formats, history and regulation.

Last verified September 11, 2026 against the Oregon (July 2026) and New Jersey (June 2025) state tobacco directories, Altria’s and Reynolds American’s filings, Nielsen data as reported by Tobacco Reporter, and the sources listed at the end. Style counts are directory listings, which certify a style for sale in that state; they do not mean every store carries it.

Side by side

The lineups

Marlboro (50 styles)

Camel (46 styles)

Style names are as printed in the directories; “Smooth” and similar words are the manufacturers’ style names, not this page’s description. The ranges are built differently: Marlboro’s is one blend family with color-coded variants across three lengths, while Camel’s is a series of named sub-lines (Classic, Turkish, Crush, Black Series, Craft) added over the last ten years, including the only unfiltered and the only capsule styles between the two brands. Full pack listings: Marlboro and Camel.

History

Camel. R.J. Reynolds founded his company in Winston, North Carolina in 1875 and introduced four cigarette brands in 1913. Camel, a blend of Turkish and domestic tobaccos in a pack of 20, was the survivor, and Reynolds’ own creative history calls it the first cigarette sold and advertised nationally in America. “I’d walk a mile for a Camel” dates to 1920 or 1921. Filtered Camel arrived in 1966. The company passed through RJR Nabisco (1985 to 1999), merged with Brown & Williamson’s US business to form Reynolds American on July 30, 2004, and was bought outright by BAT on July 25, 2017. Camel Crush, with a crushable menthol capsule in the filter, was first listed in Oregon in August 2008; the Black Series (2024) and Craft (2026) sub-lines are the newest. Production is at the Tobaccoville plant near Winston-Salem, built in 1985.

Marlboro. Philip Morris introduced Marlboro in 1924 as an unfiltered cigarette and, by 1926, was advertising it with “a feminine hand” in the pictures; it stayed small for thirty years. In 1954 and 1955 the company repositioned it “as a cigarette brand for men,” with a cork-tipped filter in a flip-top box with the red roof design, and went national in 1955. “Marlboro Country” advertising ran nationally from 1963. Altria’s timeline records Marlboro as the world’s best-selling cigarette from 1972 and the top US brand from the end of 1975. Every PM USA cigarette is made at the Richmond Manufacturing Center, opened in 1973.

Regulation

Both makers are original signatories of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and are listed as participating manufacturers in every state directory checked. The menthol styles of both brands are subject to the sales bans in Massachusetts (June 1, 2020) and California (December 21, 2022); the federal menthol proposal was withdrawn January 21, 2025. Camel has one regulatory episode Marlboro does not: in May 2023 the California Attorney General named Camel Crisp and three Camel Crush Oasis styles, sold as non-menthol after the state ban, as presumptively flavored. Reynolds sued on May 11, 2023 and dropped the suit on December 30, 2024 after California amended its law (AB 3218 and SB 1230, effective January 1, 2025) to count a “cooling sensation” as a characterizing flavor; the Oasis styles are no longer marketed. Both brands received FDA substantial-equivalence orders in the 2018 and 2019 review rounds, and no FDA warning letter specific to either was found. Texas, where Saucey delivers tobacco, has no menthol restriction.

FAQs

Are Marlboro and Camel made by the same company? No. Marlboro is Philip Morris USA (Altria); Camel is R.J. Reynolds (BAT). They are the two largest US cigarette makers and direct competitors.

Which is older? Camel, 1913. Marlboro dates to 1924, and to 1955 in its filtered form.

Which sells more? Marlboro, about five times over: roughly 40% of the US market against Camel’s roughly 8%.

Does either come unfiltered? Camel does (Regular Non-Filter, soft pack). Marlboro does not. More at Unfiltered Cigarettes.

Which has more menthol styles? Marlboro, 21 to Camel’s 13, plus Camel’s two capsule styles. Menthol Marlboro is covered in Marlboro vs Newport.

What do they cost? Both are premium brands, so the gap between them is small; tax, most of the price, is the same on both. See How Much Does a Pack of Cigarettes Cost?

Sources

• Oregon Department of Justice, Tobacco Brand Directory, July 21, 2026; New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Tobacco Directory, June 30, 2025
• Altria, 2025 full-year results, January 29, 2026, and second-quarter 2026 results (SEC EDGAR); Altria, Our Heritage; Philip Morris internal company history (Stanford SRITA); Philip Morris USA, Our Offices and Facilities
• R.J. Reynolds, Camel creative history (Stanford SRITA); NCpedia, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company; Reynolds American Form 10-K filings for 2004, 2010 and 2014 (SEC EDGAR); BAT, BAT Completes Acquisition of Reynolds, July 25, 2017
• Tobacco Reporter, Nicotine market shares stay flat through December, January 11, 2024 (Nielsen data); Tobacco Insider, USA: Cigarette Brands, January 24, 2025
• Reynolds American, Reynolds files lawsuit in California, May 2023; California Healthline, reporting on California’s non-menthol cigarettes; Public Health Law Center, Proposed Menthol Rules Withdrawn, February 7, 2025; Mass.gov, 2019 Tobacco Control Law