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Imperial Tobacco, the firm behind the Lambert & Butler and Embassy brands, has seen UK cigarette sales plummet by 450 million — or 22.5 million packets — in the past 12 months.
But it sold 2486 tonnes of rolling tobacco, including Golden Virginia and Gold Leaf, up by 188 tonnes, as recession-hit smokers saved money and turned to rollies.
Imps admitted the slump in cigarette sales would have been even worse but for the fall in the number of smokers heading overseas on holiday and stocking up on cheap fags.
Imps said it was still on track to deliver profits in line with internal forecasts thanks to booming sales overseas. Tobacco sales have been falling in the UK for years.
Imps said its share of the UK cigarette market fell from 45.9% at the end of June last year to 45.3% this year. The market shrank from 45.4 billion to 45 billion in that time.
Its share of the fine-cut tobacco market fell from 62.1% to 58.5%.
Reader views (2)
Besides the trend towards rolling your own, I have noticed that a higher percentage of rollers are now using tobacco without additives. I used to have trouble finding American Spirit in UK, but in the past couple of years it seems to be becoming the first choice of many.
Having been smoking it for the past 15 years, I now find that I can no longer use UK scarcity as an excuse to persuade friends traveling from the US to bring me as many cans as they think they can get through customs;-)
- Charles Lucy, London UK, 24/07/2009 10:32
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The Recession has done what the Smoking Ban was never going to do - Cut the number of smokers.
- Andrew, London W1, 24/07/2009 01:28
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