CVS Caremark set a “powerful example” by deciding to stop selling tobacco products as ofWednesday, according to the White House, but its top rivals are not planning to follow suit, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The newspaper’s Marketwatch says that Walgreen Co. and Rite Aid may have a good reason for keeping cigarettes on the shelves — it can’t absorb the loss in sales as easily as CVS.
Although CVS had been taking in $2 billion in tobacco sales per year, it is “the biggest retail pharmacy by far of the three, sitting at the No. 12 spot on the Fortune 500 with nearly $127 billion in sales for 2013,” the Journal reported.
“Walgreen had little more than half of CVS’s sales, with $72 billion last year. Rite Aid took in around $25.5 billion,” it added.
CVS made waves in February when it announced its plans to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products, citing its mission to promote health.
On Wednesday, the company announced that it had changed its corporate name to CVS Health and decided to pull tobacco from its shelves about a month earlier than planned.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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