The cigarette boom seen in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have ended over this summer, a new report finds.
Data released by Altria Group, the largest cigarette company in the U.S. - which accounts for half of sales in the nation - shows that Quarter 3 sales fell by 6.5 percent in 2021 when compared to the same period last year.
It marks the potential end of a spike in sales for the cigarette industry after 2020 saw purchases rise for the first year in nearly two decades with years of legislation and public campaigns to reduce smoking worldwide largely successful.
Altria reports that there were more than $7 billion worth of cigarette sales in Q3 of 2020, compared to only $6.7 billion during the same part of 2021.
Cigarette sales decreased by 6.5% in Q3 2021 when compared to the same period in 2020, falling from 7.1 billion in sales last year to 6.7 billion this year
The number of cigarettes bought by wholesalers and retailers went from 202.9 billion in 2019 to 203.7 billion in 2020, a rise of 0.4 percent, the FTC reports
Experts told the Wall Street Journal that smokers having more free income in 2020 -because the pandemic prevented them on spending money on other things - led to them smoking more, by themselves at home, increasing sales last year.
Sales of cigarettes have consistently decreased for decades, and the last time there was a single year-over-year increase was in 2004.
In 2020, throughout the entire year, sales increased by 0.4 percent over 2019, according to data from the Federal Trade Commission released last week.
Another potential reason reported for the
