The Italian Cigar Market
The consumption of cigars (we always refer to legal sales, because of the availability of data and also because contraband, which significantly affects the sale of cigarettes, does not alter what we are interested in) in recent years seems to have, notwithstanding ups and downs, become stabile.During the last century, the use of cigars (and also snuff and pipe tobaccos) have witnessed a massive drop. Their consumption, in relation to all the other smoking products available, has fallen from 40% before the first world war to 15% during the two world wars and has continued plummeting, reaching 1% in the 1970s.
During the last ten years, the consumption of these products has oscillated between 0.5% and 0.7% The most significant anomaly of cigar consumption- which makes it look like there is a counter tendency with respect to the growing preference of Italians, for all other forms of tobacco and for foreign products- is the constant and net preference for the national product. Its market share is about 90 percent.
