Western Europe

2022 was a good year for the smokeless tobacco, e-vapour products and heated tobacco category. Most traditional tobacco smokers (cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos and fine cut tobacco) knew that the taxation was temporally frozen during the pandemic…

Closed single-use systems recorded another year of current value growth at around 1,000% in 2022, with the device rapidly becoming the most popular in vaping. On the other hand, open vaping devices and e-liquids both recorded double-digit current…

Retail sales of e-vapour products saw accelerated growth in constant value terms in 2022, in keeping with rising levels of health consciousness within the population. While not without their own risks, e-vapour products were widely perceived as being…

The growth seen in fine cut tobacco in recent years came to a halt in 2022, with the category recording a double-digit volume sales decline. As in cigarettes, this decline was being driven by UK consumers returning to travelling abroad and purchasing…

Fine cut tobacco volume sales recorded positive growth in 2022 following the decline seen in 2021, with actual volume sales in 2022 remaining above their pre-pandemic level, helped by the strong growth seen in 2020. The continued prevalence of remote…

Sales of cigars, cigarillos and smoking tobacco, which was previously one of the most spared categories during the COVID-19 years, collapsed in 2022. This occurred because smoking tobacco had enjoyed a still low level of taxation, and thus a high…

Smoking tobacco volume sales decreased substantially in 2022. One reason this was an increase in unit prices, due to the rise in excise duties on smoking tobacco. This negatively affected both domestic sales of smoking tobacco, with many consumers…

In 2021, cigarettes recorded positive volume growth for the first time since 2009, mainly due to travel restrictions, with consumers being unable to purchase cigarettes in duty free or via illicit trade, driving sales towards taxable UK channels,…

During the pandemic, cigarette consumption benefitted from remote working as well as high levels of stress among the local population. Moreover, consumers were not able to cross borders during the lockdowns to buy their cigarettes in neighbouring…

Sales of cigarettes displayed a marked decline in current value terms in 2022, even stronger than the fall that the category had already experienced in 2021. Both 2021 and 2022 were more challenging than 2020 for cigarettes, due to the more limited…