Tobacco Asia 43
combustibles, largely from increased market pres-
ence in Latin America and its subsidiary KT&G
Indonesia; in Q4/2022, ITC saw its cigarette vol-
umes grow by 15% compared to the same period
the previous year.
Statista figures show that in 2022 revenue from
the cigarettes segment of the tobacco products
market was highest in China at US$273 billion, fol-
lowed by the US at US$82.7 billion, Indonesia at
US$33.1 billion, Germany at US$30.5 billion, and
Japan at US$24.9 billion.
Obviously, the demand for conventional ciga-
rettes is there, despite a growing selection of new
alternatives coming to market and a never-ending
stream of anti-tobacco messages being forced
upon the masses. As such it is a no-brainer that
there would need to be supply to answer that de-
mand. But, tobacco companies are constantly at-
tacked and pressured to stop doing just that. If
they really were to ignore the 1.3 billion smokers
globally and stop selling combustible cigarettes en-
tirely, what would be the likely outcome?
There would be a gold rush for illicit cigarettes.
When there is demand for a product but supply is
scarce, the black market thrives. Currently, even
with tobacco companies manufacturing and sell-
ing cigarettes legitimately, illicit cigarettes remain a
thorny issue that grows larger each year.
If supply of legal cigarettes were to disappear while there was still demand,
there would be a gold rush for illicit cigarettes.
