Western Europe

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…

In the upcoming years, consumers and businesses face an array of challenges, with income inequality, mass migration and rising uncertainty about another crisis being among the major ones. Nevertheless, within this lie untapped opportunities. This…

After seeing retail volume growth in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, cigarettes experienced declines in 2021 and 2022, in line with the longer-term trend towards decreasing smoking prevalence. As a large proportion of the economically active…

In 2022, heated tobacco products maintained a strong performance, as more smokers adopted these as an alternative to cigarettes. Price promotions on devices, notably the entry-level compact device Iqos Iluma One by Philip Morris, contributed to…

Sales of both cigars and cigarillos recorded solid retail volume growth in 2022. Many smokers consider cigar smoking as an occasional indulgence rather than a daily necessity, and are less likely to try to quit smoking or to reduce their consumption…

The long-term trend of declining volume sales of cigarettes continued in 2022, with consumers increasingly aware of the levels of harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke. Cigarettes posted negative performances in both retail volume and current value…

Sales of combustible tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos and smoking tobacco continued to decline in both volume and real value (at constant 2022 prices) terms in 2022. Any sales increases in current value terms were mostly being…

From 1 July 2022, tobacco heating devices have been facing the same regulatory conditions as combustible tobacco products. That means that there is an advertising ban and display ban in place for these products, a minimum age of 18 years to buy and…

One of the leading factors contributing to decline in sales of smoking tobacco over the last two years was that the excise tax increased in 2021. The government in the Netherlands is now increasing the excise on smoking tobacco at the same time as it…

Some smokers have been switching to cheaper brands of cigarettes in order to reduce their expenditure on these products. This was being driven by the reduction in purchasing power as a result of the high inflation rates being seen in the Netherlands,…