Smoking Tobacco in Italy

TRENDS

Over the course of the review period, smoking tobacco became very popular in Italy as the category registered rapid growth among Italian consumers. The reason for this was mainly the fact that the high prices of cigarettes encouraged already cash-strapped Italian smokers, especially the youngest smokers, to substitute cigarettes with cheaper RYO tobacco and pipe tobacco, which enables them to strongly reduce their monthly expenditure on smoking. However, after several tax increases closed the gap between the unit prices charged for smoking tobacco and cigarettes, RYO tobacco recorded a slowdown in terms of growth rates in 2015 compared with those seen during earlier years of the review period.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

The competitive environments are highly consolidated in both smoking tobacco and RYO tobacco, with four of the top five players in cigarettes also present in smoking tobacco, with the only exception to this being JT International. Phillip Morris Italia Srl remained the leader in smoking tobacco in Italy in 2015 with a 35% volume share through its Marlboro brand, followed by Imperial Tobacco Italy Srl with the brands Golden Virginia and Drum. Following in third place was British American Tobacco Italia with Pueblo and Samson, followed by Gallaher in fourth place with Camel Essential and Old Holborn. Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co followed in fifth position with Natural American Spirit. Umbrella brands present in RYO tobacco such as Camel and Marlboro are able to take advantage of their popularity in cigarettes as Italian smokers are increasingly looking for the same taste in RYO tobacco as they are in cigarettes, but at a lower cost. The main distributor of RYO tobacco in Italy remains Logista Italia.

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