Smoking Tobacco in Ireland

TRENDS

Smoking tobacco continued to experience strong growth in both volume and value terms in 2015, with volume sales rising by 3% and current value sales rising by 4%, although this was concerned with the slower than the 7% volume and current value CAGRs recorded in the category over the review period. Smoking tobacco recorded significant growth rates at the beginning of the review period, which was the result of consumers looking for cheaper alternatives to cigarettes due to the economic recession and the more cautious approach to spending adopted by many Irish consumers during the post-recession years. The lower growth rates seen in smoking tobacco during 2015 can also be explained by reference to the continuously decreasing numbers of people among Ireland’s smoking population, with 830,000 smokers in the country during 2010 falling to 743,000 smokers in 2015, which represents a decline of 10% over the course of the review period. Additionally, 2015 also marked a year of uncertainty in the Irish tobacco industry due to the threat of upcoming legislation in 2016, which is expected to negatively affect the category significantly.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Gallaher (Dublin) Ltd remained the dominant leading player in smoking tobacco in 2015 with a 74% volume share. This high volume share is mainly the result of the positive performance recorded by the company’s Amber Leaf brand, which held a 72% volume share in RYO tobacco during 2015. In contrast, Gallaher’s other RYO tobacco brands recorded very low volume shares in 2015, with Camel Blue and Rolled Gold each recording a 1% volume share and Old Holborn registering a marginal volume share during the year. The other two main players in RYO Tobacco are John Player & Sons and P J Carroll & Co, which combined accounted for 15% of volume sales in the category in 2015.