The World Health Organisation (WHO) hailed on Thursday what it termed as a 'landmark' decision handed down by the Australian High Court yesterday, which affirmed efforts by the federal government to force tobacco firms to sell their products on drab and plain packaging.

What happened in Australia, according to WHO director-general Margaret Chan, could deliver the final blow for an industry that is running out of rooms to operate, especially in developed economies like the United States and Australia.

Keeping cigarette manufacturers from selling their wares in attractive packaging, Ms Chan said, is "a highly effective way to counter the industry's ruthless marketing tactics."

The WHO, along with global medical experts, have attributed the deaths of up to six million people each year on cigarette smoking, according to ABC.

With giant tobacco firms left to market their products in plain packaging and with graphic health advisories, the United Nations health agency is upbeat on the likelihood that the Australian initiative will catch fire on other world governments and "take on board some of the measures."

"We hope this will be a domino effect ... and hopefully reduce the amount of people who die from tobacco related illnesses," a WHO spokesman told ABC on Thursday.

Also, U.S.-based anti-smoking group Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids lauded Australian authortities for taking the lead in the global battle "to reduce tobacco use both in Australia and around the globe."

"Australia, by eliminating the use of tobacco packages to make tobacco products appealing to children, will bring about the most fundamental difference in the effort to reduce youth tobacco use we have seen in decades," the group president, Matthew Myers, told ABC today.

Mr Myers is equally upbeat that the local development should prod other countries to rethink their policies on the matter and hopefully adopt what Canberra has boldly accomplished to protect its citizens from the hazards of smoking.

However, the WHO may be dismayed by indications that despite the slides in stock values of giant tobacco players such as British American Tobacco (BAT), Japan Tobacco International (JTI), Philip Morris International (PMI) and Imperial Tobacco, which were directly credited to the High Court ruling, the industry was too far from being written off.

Business Day said on a Thursday report that "a look at the share prices of tobacco companies shows the market sees a future in smoking."

The perceived loss of the Australian market, the Fairfax publication said, could easily be recovered as tobacco firms refocus their attention on alternative and relatively bigger markets to hopefully tap billions of revenues to be delivered by existing and would-be smokers in Asia and East Europe.

A number of market analysts, according to Business Day, have conceded that amidst the setbacks being absorbed by tobacco players there was "still a massive smoking market," that waits to be penetrated.

Investors, according to Morningstar Australasia's Peter Warnes, would still bet on the industry due to the medical fact that nicotine is a hook and many in China and East Europe will be lured into smoking cigarettes on whichever from of packaging that they would come.

"The Chinese and Eastern Europeans smoke at bloody breakfast," Mr Warnes told Fairfax.

And one thing that comforts most the global tobacco industry, which generates tens of billions in revenues yearly, is the solid notion that what Australia has done will never be replicated in China, he added.

Local tobacco firms have indicated shortly that they will respect and follow the new laws governing their operations but reiterated their doubts that plain packaging will deter a person from lighting up a stick of cigarette.

The industry reiterated that at most, the strict government regulation will only prompt the influx of smuggled cigarette products that will flood the Australian market.

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