Middle East

After a year of strong growth in 2021, cigarette sales recorded a slight unit volume decline in Middle East and Africa in 2022. With disposable incomes under pressure in a lot of countries, illicit trade remains a problem in many of them. E-vaping…

Technological advances in 2024 will continue to reshape consumer behaviour. This annual report explores the top five digital shopper trends that will redefine commerce the most in the year ahead. Some of the trends included in this report’s edition…

This report examines inflation levels and drivers globally and in key countries in Q4 2023 and 2024. Global inflation is moderating, although divergence remains among the key economies. Higher volatility in the energy markets and disruption of…

The tobacco market in Oman is still recovering after the introduction of a 100% excise tax in 2019. In this environment, consumer demand has shifted towards lower-priced cigarettes, while cigarettes volume sales continued to decline in 2022. The…

Having performed strongly during 2020, retail current value sales of tobacco declined for the first time in four years in 2021 and once again in 2022. Notably, cigarettes saw moderate decline in both retail volume and current value terms in 2022.…

Electronic cigarette usage is increasing significantly among young local consumers, even though they cannot legally be sold to minors. This is because the supervision in this product area has been deficient. In 2022, 33% of teenagers reported having…

The product area has seen two recent price increases: by 2 shekels in June 2021, and by a further 2 shekels in January 2023. In 2021 the category saw positive growth as a result of lockdown and lower sales of duty-free stores. Post-COVID-19, it has…

The tobacco industry in Israel has seen consistent price increases over the review period. In 2022, the price of a cigarette package increased by NIS1, and there was an additional NIS1 increase in January 2023.

Cigarettes remained the largest category in tobacco in Saudi Arabia in 2022, despite the growing trend towards heated tobacco. However, the number of people quitting smoking continues to increase, due to better informed health awareness among…

Heated tobacco products continue to boom in Saudi Arabia, gaining a lot of popularity – especially so among younger generations of consumers of the legal smoking age, who find such smoking methods fashionable and attractive. Indeed, many consumers…

Smoking tobacco, especially pipe tobacco, continues to dominate sales in the category, representing the water pipe tobacco (shisha), while cigars and cigarillos remain niche, with low popularity and a very select audience. Although cafés and…

British American Tobacco Plc (BAT) maintains its company lead (in both NBO and GBO terms) in cigarettes, while Marlboro Red from Philip Morris International Inc (PMI) is the top brand, with Marlboro variants pipping BAT’s Dunhill Carlton to the post.…

Although tobacco usage is declining globally, the United Arab Emirates maintains strong and rising consumer demand, and consistent growth was seen within the industry in 2022. After some turbulence in the growth rate due to COVID-19, most tobacco…

The product range available in open vaping systems in the United Arab Emirates has expanded, as Vaporesso entered the market in 2022. Vaporesso is a premium vape brand that is now present in 50 markets. It is from Shenzhen Smoore Technology Co Ltd,…

Amongst all the established traditional alternatives to cigarettes, pipe tobacco is the only one still growing as fast as cigarettes, while cigars, cigarillos, and fine cut tobacco are also seeing growth, but at a slower rate. One of the reasons is…

The cigarettes category in the United Arab Emirates is becoming less fragmented, with most volumes now being generated by the top global manufacturers. In 2022, brands from Philip Morris Management Services (Middle East) Ltd and Imperial Tobacco…

A strict approach towards the sale of tobacco products and smoking in public and educational campaigns form the core of Qatar’s efforts to reduce smoking prevalence. Qatar has modernised and promulgated its tobacco laws in recent years and this…

The ongoing economic crisis in 2022 has forced many smokers to abandon imported global cigarette brands as prices have risen steeply, with local brand Cedars the big winner. Low awareness of the harms of smoking means that few smokers have chosen to…

Tobacco remains under pressure in 2022, despite the pandemic coming to an end. Cigarettes continues to see volume decline, while cigars and cigarillos have returned to growth after witnessing decline in 2021. The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020…

While the COVID-19 pandemic did not negatively impact tobacco in 2022, tax-paid cigarettes remain under pressure due to rising taxes, falling income levels and the strong presence of illicit trade. Despite more intense efforts to control smuggling,…