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Tag: decline

  • CAA Reports U.S. Cigar Imports Down 8.7%

    CAA Reports U.S. Cigar Imports Down 8.7%

    The Cigar Association of America (CAA) reported the U.S. imported 48.4 million premium cigars in the first two months of 2025, an 8.7% decrease from the previous year. The decline was not due to tariffs, which were announced in April, but are believed to be part of the ever-adjusting post-pandemic market.

    The three major cigar exporters all saw declines, with the Dominican Republic down 4.1%, Nicaragua (which accounts for more than half of the market) down 9.3%, and Honduras down 19.3%. Those three producers account for 99% of handmade, premium cigar shipments to the United States.

    “January’s imports are typically anemic compared to the other 11 months of the year, oftentimes less than half of some of the peak import numbers that occur in the second half of the calendar,” Charlie Minato wrote for Halfwheel. “While imports have cooled off from their peak in 2020-2022, the U.S. imported 430 million premium cigars in 2024, up more than 90 million units compared to pre-pandemic levels.”

    According to the CAA, the market increased from 338 million handmade cigars in 2019 to 465 million in 2022.

  • Bangladesh Says Smoking Rates Not Declining Fast Enough

    Bangladesh Says Smoking Rates Not Declining Fast Enough

    Health officials in Bangladesh said the country is unlikely to meet its smoking reduction goal of 40% by 2030, as suggested by the World Health Organization. According to the Bangladesh Medical University (BMU), smoking in the country declined 13% between 2009 and 2022, only a third of its ultimate goal.

    M Mostafa Zaman, executive editor of BMU Journal, said overall tobacco use dropped from 54% to 47% over that time, but that 22% of the population still smokes cigarettes and 31% use smokeless tobacco. Between 2017 and 2022, the use of e-cigarettes increased from 3.6% to 14.6%.

    Shafiun Nahin Shimul, a professor at the Institute of Health Economics at Dhaka University, however, said the data set being used is extremely limited, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions from either the figures or the study’s methodology. He said that while the analysis suggests that tobacco consumption has fallen, the National Board of Revenue statistics indicate cigarette sales are on the rise as the use of bidi (a kind of cheap cigarette) has decreased compared to cigarettes.