Share of Tobacco Producers Drops

The share of leading tobacco producers in the Russian market dropped by 2.5 percentage points in the first half of 2023, according to research from the National Research Center of Competencies Against Illegal Turnover of Industrial Products reported by Tass.

“According to results of the survey, the market share of products of the top 4 (country’s largest) manufacturers dropped by 2.5 percentage points,” the center said. “It stood at 83.3 percent.”

Product share not related to the top 4 companies in the region was 16.7 percent compared to 14.2 percent in the previous year’s research. Counterfeit product share totaled 3.2 percent.

“The decline in the share of illegal turnover of such products by 8 percent was also registered,” according to the center. “The overall share of the illegal turnover of tobacco products across the country stands at 13.3 percent in terms of the total number of smokers in the country.”

Following Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, tobacco multinationals vowed to withdraw from Russia or substantially scale back their operations, although some have found it difficult to do so as Moscow tightened restrictions on such transactions.