KT&G’s overseas sales overtake domestic sales

KT&G’s overseas cigarette sales surpassed its domestic sales for the first time last year, The Korea Herald has reported.

According to the company’s annual sales report for 2015, it sold 46.5 billion cigarettes outside Korea, including those manufactured in Korea for export and those produced by its overseas units.

Its domestic sales stood at 40.6 billion.

Among KT&G’s overseas markets, the Middle East, with 48.8 percent, accounted for the largest share, and it was followed by the Asia-Pacific with 25.4 percent, Latin America and Europe with a combined 14.2 percent, and the Commonwealth of Independent States and Central Asia with a combined 11.5 percent.

By brand, KT&G’s ESSE constituted 55.5 percent of overseas sales, followed by PINE with 29.2 percent and TIME with 5.3 percent.

KT&G, now the world’s fifth-largest tobacco-manufacturer outside China, attributed its fast-growing overseas performance to the company’s successful inroad into emerging markets, the expansion of its overseas production facilities and its employees’ eagerness for the global challenge.