Roughly 1.3 billion people worldwide use some form of nicotine. That figure combines 1.2 billion tobacco users with over 100 million vapers (accounting for overlap between the two groups), plus tens of millions more using heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches. Despite decades of public health campaigns, about one in five adults globally still uses tobacco, and newer nicotine products are adding to the total.
Global Tobacco Use Is Falling, but Slowly
The number of tobacco users worldwide dropped from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024, according to the World Health Organization’s latest trends report. That’s meaningful progress, but it still means roughly 20% of all adults use tobacco in some form, whether cigarettes, cigars, pipes, hookah, or smokeless products.
The gender gap is stark. Four out of five tobacco users are men. Male tobacco use prevalence fell from 41.4% in 2010 to 32.5% in 2024, while female prevalence dropped from 11% to 6.6% over the same period. The total number of women using tobacco fell from 277 million to 206 million, meaning most of the world’s remaining tobacco burden is concentrated among men, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Nicotine Use in the United States
In 2022, about 28.8 million U.S. adults smoked cigarettes, representing 11.6% of the adult population. That’s a historic low, down from roughly 20% a decade earlier and over 40% in the 1960s. But cigarettes are no longer the only way Americans consume nicotine.
Vaping, nicotine pouches, and other alternatives have expanded the nicotine landscape considerably. About 3 in 10 adults who vape also smoke cigarettes, a pattern known as dual use. That overlap is even more common among older adults: among vapers aged 45 and older, 42.7% also smoke. So the total number of Americans regularly consuming nicotine is substantially higher than the cigarette count alone suggests.
Vaping: Over 100 Million Users Worldwide
For the first time, the WHO estimated global e-cigarette use in its 2025 report. The numbers: at least 86 million adult vapers, concentrated mostly in high-income countries, plus at least 15 million adolescents aged 13 to 15. That 100-million-plus total makes vaping the fastest-growing category of nicotine use.
In the U.S., 5.9% of middle and high school students reported current e-cigarette use in 2024, with high schoolers vaping at nearly double the rate of middle schoolers (7.8% vs. 3.5%). Disposable devices dominate, accounting for 55.6% of the devices students use most often. Another 15.6% use prefilled or refillable pods, and about one in five student vapers couldn’t identify the type of device they were using.
Nicotine Pouches and Heated Tobacco
Nicotine pouches, the tobacco-free oral products sold under brands like Zyn, are growing rapidly in the U.S. Past-year use among adults nearly doubled between 2023 and 2024, jumping from 3.4% to 5.9%. Past-month use rose from 2.3% to 4.2% over the same period. Notably, growth occurred not just among current smokers or vapers but also among people who had never smoked or had quit vaping, suggesting these products are attracting new nicotine users rather than simply shifting existing ones.
Heated tobacco products, which warm real tobacco without burning it, have carved out a separate niche. Global users reached an estimated 49 million in 2024, with some estimates running as high as 79 million depending on how the count is done. Growth has been especially rapid in parts of Asia and Europe, where products like IQOS have significant market share.
Who Uses Nicotine Most
Income and education are two of the strongest predictors of nicotine use, at least in the United States. Smoking prevalence among adults living below the federal poverty level is roughly double the rate of those above it: 41.1% vs. 23.7% for men, and 32.5% vs. 18.3% for women. The pattern holds across most racial and ethnic groups, with limited exceptions among Asian women and Hispanic men.
Education shows a similar gradient. Among adults 25 and older, 31.6% of those without a high school diploma smoke, compared to 10.8% of those with a bachelor’s degree. The gap between “some college” (25.1%) and a completed four-year degree is nearly as large as the gap between no diploma and a high school diploma. These disparities have persisted for decades and, if anything, have widened as overall smoking rates have declined, since reductions have been fastest among higher-income, more-educated populations.
Quitting Nicotine Remains Difficult
About two-thirds of U.S. adult smokers (67.7%) say they want to quit, and roughly half (53.3%) made an attempt in 2022. But wanting to quit and succeeding are very different things. Only 8.8% of smokers achieved what researchers define as recent successful cessation, meaning they had stayed off cigarettes for at least six months. That gap between intent and outcome reflects nicotine’s powerful hold on the brain’s reward system. Most people who eventually quit for good have tried and failed multiple times before succeeding.
The rise of alternative nicotine products complicates the picture further. Some smokers switch entirely to vaping or pouches, some use both, and some pick up newer products without ever having smoked. The net effect on total nicotine use is still being measured, but the trend is clear: even as cigarette smoking declines, nicotine itself is not going away. The delivery methods are simply multiplying.