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Marlboro and Lucky Strike are the two oldest names still on US cigarette shelves, and they are now made by the two largest US tobacco companies: Marlboro by Philip Morris USA (Altria) in Richmond, Virginia, and Lucky Strike by R.J. Reynolds (British American Tobacco) in North Carolina. One is the biggest brand in the country by a wide margin; the other was an unfiltered-only relic for most of the 2000s and was relaunched with filtered styles in 2020. This page puts the two side by side on the facts that are public and checkable: who makes them, how big they are, what styles exist, and how they got here.
Last verified September 11, 2026 against the Oregon (July 2026) and New Jersey (June 2025) state tobacco directories, Altria’s and BAT’s financial reports, 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
| Fact | Marlboro | Lucky Strike |
|---|---|---|
| US manufacturer | Philip Morris USA, Richmond, Virginia | R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Tobaccoville, North Carolina |
| Parent | Altria Group | British American Tobacco, through Reynolds American (since July 2017) |
| Launched | 1924 as an unfiltered cigarette; relaunched nationally in 1955 with a filter and the flip-top box | 1871 as a plug (chewing) tobacco under R.A. Patterson of Richmond; a cigarette by the early 1900s; “It’s Toasted” from 1917 |
| Ownership path | Philip Morris throughout; parent renamed Altria in 2003 | American Tobacco Company; sold to BAT’s Brown & Williamson in 1994; Reynolds since the 2004 Brown & Williamson merger |
| Price tier | Premium | Not classified publicly by BAT; Reynolds grouped it among “non-support brands” in 2006 |
| US market share | 40.5% of retail cigarette sales in 2025 and 39.5% in Q2 2026 (Altria, Circana/MSAi data); 59.4% of the premium segment | 2.1% (Tobacco Insider, January 2025, retail scan data); BAT calls it “the fastest growing cigarette brand in the market” (2024 results) |
| Rank | No. 1 in the US since December 1975 | 7th in the 2025 Tobacco Insider top ten |
| Styles in the Oregon directory | 50 | 11 |
| Lengths | 72 mm shorts, king (83 mm), 100s | King, 100s |
| Packs | Box only in Oregon; soft packs no longer listed | Box, plus one soft pack (Non-Filter) |
| Menthol styles | 21 of 50 | 5 of 11 |
| Unfiltered style | None | Yes: Lucky Strike Non-Filter Soft |
| Capsule filter styles | None listed | Activate Blue and Activate Green Menthol (capsule mechanism not confirmed from the directory) |
| Master Settlement Agreement | Original participant (1998) | Made by an original participant (Reynolds); Brown & Williamson also signed in 1998 |
| Pack | 20 cigarettes | 20 cigarettes |
The lineups
Marlboro (50 styles)
Marlboro’s Oregon listings sort into families. Every one is a box.
| Family | Styles | Menthol |
|---|---|---|
| Marlboro (red), 100’s, Eighty-Threes | 3 | No |
| Gold Pack, Silver Pack, Black Gold Pack (king and 100’s) | 6 | No |
| 72’s shorts (Marlboro, Gold, Silver, Green Menthol, Black Menthol) | 5 | 2 of 5 |
| Blend No. 27, Red Label, Smooth, Southern Cut (king and 100’s) | 7 | No |
| Cowboy Cut (Marlboro, Gold, Menthol; king and 100’s) | 6 | 2 of 6 |
| Special Blend black pack (Marlboro and Menthol; king and 100’s) | 4 | 2 of 4 |
| Special Select red and gold packs (king and 100’s) | 4 | No |
| Menthol, Menthol Gold, Menthol Silver, Menthol Blue, Menthol Slate (king and 100’s) | 10 | Yes |
| Menthol Ice, Bold Ice, Smooth Ice, Midnight Menthol, NXT Menthol (king) | 5 | Yes |
New Jersey lists 47 Marlboro styles, adding Gold Label and Gold Label 100’s and omitting the seven Cowboy Cut styles. The FDA’s 2018 substantial-equivalence review still listed five Marlboro soft packs (Blend No. 27, Gold, Menthol, Menthol Gold, Red Label); none appears in the July 2026 Oregon directory.
Lucky Strike (11 styles)
| Style as listed (Oregon) | Length | Pack | Menthol | Oregon listing date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lucky Strike Non-Filter Soft | King | Soft | No | July 18, 2007 |
| Lucky Strike Red Filters Box | King | Box | No | May 7, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Red Filters 100’s Box | 100s | Box | No | May 7, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Gold Filters Box | King | Box | No | May 7, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Gold Filters 100s Box | 100s | Box | No | May 7, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Menthol King Box | King | Box | Yes | October 21, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Menthol 100s Box | 100s | Box | Yes | October 21, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Menthol Silver King Box | King | Box | Yes | October 21, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Menthol Silver 100s Box | 100s | Box | Yes | October 21, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Activate Blue King Box | King | Box | No | October 21, 2020 |
| Lucky Strike Activate Green Menthol King Box | King | Box | Yes | October 21, 2020 |
The listing dates tell the story: for years the only Lucky Strike sold in the US was the unfiltered soft pack, and the ten filtered styles all arrived in 2020. Full pack listings: Marlboro and Lucky Strike.
History
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 was a small brand 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 in selected markets from 1962 and nationally from 1963. Altria’s own timeline records Marlboro becoming the world’s best-selling cigarette in 1972 and the top US brand by the end of 1975, a position it has held for fifty years. All PM USA cigarettes have been made at the Richmond Manufacturing Center, opened in 1973, since the Cabarrus, North Carolina plant closed and production was consolidated there by 2011. The broadcast advertising ban of 1971 and the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, which Philip Morris signed with 46 states, ended most of the advertising the brand was known for.
Lucky Strike. The name is older than the cigarette: secondary sources trace it to an 1871 plug tobacco from R.A. Patterson of Richmond, acquired by the American Tobacco Company in 1905. The American Tobacco Company began the “It’s Toasted” slogan in 1917, and the brand was one of the largest in the country through the 1930s and 1940s. It declined for decades. In April 1994 BAT Industries agreed to buy the American Tobacco Company from American Brands for $1 billion, taking Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Carlton and Tareyton; the FTC cleared the deal in April 1995 with divestitures, and Lucky Strike went to BAT’s US unit, Brown & Williamson. When Brown & Williamson’s US business merged with R.J. Reynolds on July 30, 2004 to form Reynolds American, the brand moved to Reynolds, which in 2006 grouped it among “non-support brands” managed for profit rather than growth. For most of the years that followed the only US Lucky Strike was the unfiltered soft pack. Reynolds listed filtered Red and Gold styles in Oregon in May 2020 and Menthol and Activate styles that October, and BAT has since described Lucky Strike as the fastest-growing cigarette brand in the US market (2024 results) and one of the two brands driving its share gains (June 2025 trading update). BAT bought the rest of Reynolds in July 2017.
Regulation
Both brands are made by original signatories of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and both makers are listed as participating manufacturers in every state directory checked. Neither brand has a public FDA warning letter or “not substantially equivalent” order in the searches run for this page. The 20 menthol Marlboro styles and the 5 menthol Lucky Strike styles are subject to the menthol sales bans in Massachusetts (June 1, 2020) and California (December 21, 2022); the federal menthol proposal was withdrawn January 21, 2025 and no federal menthol rule is in effect. Lucky Strike’s unfiltered soft pack is lawful everywhere cigarettes are; there is no federal rule requiring a filter. Texas, where Saucey delivers tobacco, has no menthol restriction.
FAQs
Who makes Marlboro and who makes Lucky Strike? Marlboro is made by Philip Morris USA, owned by Altria. Lucky Strike is made by R.J. Reynolds, owned by British American Tobacco. They are competitors, not sister brands.
Which brand is older? The Lucky Strike name dates to 1871 (as chewing tobacco) and was a cigarette by the early 1900s. Marlboro dates to 1924. As a filtered cigarette in a flip-top box, Marlboro dates to 1955; as a filtered brand in the US market today, Lucky Strike dates to 2020.
Which sells more? Marlboro, by a very large margin: about four in ten cigarettes sold in the US in 2025 were Marlboros, according to Altria. Lucky Strike’s share is about 2% by industry press estimates, though BAT reports it growing faster than any other brand.
Does either brand come unfiltered? Lucky Strike does (Non-Filter Soft). Marlboro does not; its original 1924 version was unfiltered but has not been sold in decades. More on filters at Unfiltered Cigarettes.
Is Lucky Strike still “toasted”? “It’s Toasted” was the American Tobacco Company’s slogan from 1917, referring to the heating of tobacco during processing, a step that was not unique to the brand. It was advertising then and is a historical slogan now; it says nothing about the current product that a state directory does not.
What do they cost? Marlboro is a premium brand; Lucky Strike’s tier is not published. Taxes, which are most of the price of any pack, are the same on every brand. The state-by-state breakdown is at 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 fourth-quarter and full-year results, January 29, 2026, and second-quarter 2026 results, July 30, 2026 (SEC EDGAR); Altria, Our Heritage; Philip Morris USA, Our Offices and Facilities; Philip Morris internal company history (Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising)
- Stanford SRITA, It’s Toasted; Baltimore Sun, BAT Industries agrees to buy American Tobacco for $1 billion, April 27, 1994; Federal Trade Commission, B.A.T Industries consent order, April 21, 1995
- Reynolds American Form 10-K for 2004 and 2006 lender memorandum (SEC EDGAR); BAT, BAT Completes Acquisition of Reynolds, July 25, 2017; BAT, Full-year 2024 results, February 13, 2025, and first-half 2025 pre-close trading update, June 3, 2025
- Tobacco Insider, USA: Cigarette Brands, January 24, 2025 (industry press); FDA Center for Tobacco Products, substantial-equivalence review documents, 2018 (fda.gov/media/117667)
- Public Health Law Center, Proposed Menthol Rules Withdrawn, February 7, 2025; Mass.gov, 2019 Tobacco Control Law; California Department of Public Health, SB 793 fact sheet
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The fine print
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