Premium cigars light up US market

The US last year imported more premium, non-Cuban cigars than it did in 1996, which is generally reckoned to have been the high-point of the ‘cigar boom’ of the 1990s.

According to a press release from Shmuli’s Cigars and Accessories, the US imported more than 317 million hand-rolled, non-Cuban cigars during 2013, up by about eight percent from 293 million during 1996.

By comparison, the production of Cuban cigars was said to have declined by about 30-40 percent during the past 10 years and to have reached only about 100 million last year.

‘While the Cuban cigar market struggles, a once small, non-Cuban cigar market has grown exponentially over time – all the likely result of the now 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba,’ the press note said.