Instead, there is more vaping
Cigarette sales have more than halved since 1991
January 26, 2024, 1:09 p.m
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Doctors can be happy, but the tobacco industry cannot: As the Federal Statistical Office reports, cigarette sales will fall by 2.7 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year. Cigarette alternatives are becoming increasingly popular.
The cigarette business in Germany is declining: In 2023, 2.7 percent fewer cigarettes were taxed compared to the previous year. The number fell to 64.0 billion – that corresponds to a decrease of 1.8 billion units. That shared that Federal Statistical Office with.
Compared to 1991 (146.5 billion), cigarette sales fell by more than half. Since then, tax increases and laws have been introduced to curb smoking, including warning labels on cigarette packs and advertising bans.
Sales of cigars and cigarillos also fell last year, by 9.7 percent (to 2.3 billion units). The reason for this is the tobacco tax increase that occurred on January 1, 2022. This was the first gradual increase in seven years. The total amount of taxed fine-cut tobacco fell by six percent to 23,581 tons between 2022 and 2023.
Increasing demand for (water) pipe tobacco and liquids
Sales of classic pipe tobacco, on the other hand, rose by 22.6 percent to 398 tons. The amount of taxed tobacco product substitutes such as liquids for e-cigarettes has also increased. The Federal Statistical Office put sales at 1.2 million liters.
Since liquids have only been subject to tobacco tax since July 1, 2022, a comparison with the entire previous year is not possible, but only with the second half of 2022. Accordingly, the amount of tobacco substitutes sold in 2023 was 181.1 percent higher than in the second half of 2022.
Sales of hookah tobacco amounted to 727.7 tons in 2023. It rose significantly again after the end of the so-called sales period for small sales packages over 25 grams: While only 304 tons of water pipe tobacco were taxed in the first half of the year, sales volume increased by 39.7 percent to 424 tons in the second six months.
An additional tax rate was introduced for water pipe tobacco and heated tobacco on January 1, 2022. Previously, the lower taxation on pipe tobacco applied.
A new tobacco tax regulation also came into force on July 1, 2022 – since then, trading in water pipe tobacco in pack sizes over 25 grams is no longer permitted. Packs of this size, which were already taxed before the regulation came into force, were still allowed to be sold until June 30, 2023.