Number of smokers worldwide shrinking: WHO

In 2020, some 1.30 billion people were using tobacco globally, down from 1.32 billion two years earlier, the WHO said in a fresh report.

And that number, it said, is expected to dwindle to 1.27 billion by 2025, indicating a decrease of some 50 million tobacco users over a seven-year-period, even as the global population has swelled.

The report showed that while nearly a third of the global population over the age of 15 used tobacco products back in 2000, only around a fifth is expected to be doing so by 2025.

- Over 8 million deaths --
Tobacco use is estimated to kill more than eight million people each year, most of them directly due to their own tobacco use, while 1.2 million of them are non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke, according to WHO numbers.

Tuesday's report cautioned that the annual numbers of deaths would continue climbing for some time even as tobacco use declines "because tobacco kills its users and people exposed to its emissions slowly."

The report hailed that 60 countries were now on track to reduce tobacco use by 30 percent between 2010 and 2025.

When WHO published its last report on global tobacco trends two years ago, only 32 countries were on track to do so.

"We are seeing great progress in many countries" but "this success is fragile," said Ruediger Krech, head of the WHO's health promotion department.

The report called on countries to scale up their use of recognised measures to reduce tobacco use, including enforcing advertising bans, plastering health warnings on cigarette packages, raising tobacco taxes and providing assistance to those who want to quit.

Europe is the region of the world where most women use tobacco products -- a full 18 percent, the report showed.

The Western Pacific region is where most men smoke, with over 45 percent of men expected to still be using tobacco there by 2025.