Nicotine Market Shares Flat in December

Consumer demand for nicotine products has fluctuated due to inflation and rising cigarette prices over the past 13-19 months. However, the Neilsen report covering the four-week period ending Dec. 30 shows that market shares are holding steady for both next-generation and traditional tobacco brands.

The market share of R.J. Reynolds’ top-selling Vuse e-cigarette remained flat at 42 percent in December at convenience stores, according to the report. While Vuse’s market share was unchanged, No. 2 Juul dropped from 24.3 percent to 24.2 percent for the report covering the four-week period ending Dec. 30.

As recently as May 2019, Juul held a 74.6 percent share in the U.S. electronic cigarette market. That’s when a series of regulatory actions led to product-reduction concessions, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, Altria Group’s ownership of No. 3 NJoy hasn’t resulted in a meaningful market-share increase so far. Nielsen cited a research error by why it did not include an update for NJoy in the latest report. It was at 2.6 percent in the previous report.

Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs, an affiliate of Imperial Brands Plc, was unchanged at 1.2 percent.

The overall e-cigarette category was down 9.9 percent.

In traditional cigarettes, Philip Morris’ top market share was at 50.6 percent in the latest Nielsen report with top-selling Marlboro representing 45.6 percent of overall market share.

Meanwhile, Reynolds was at 33.2 percent with Newport at 12.9 percent and followed by Camel (7.8 percent), Natural American Tobacco (3.7 percent) and Pall Mall (3.7 percent).

ITG was at 8.5 percent overall, although ITG has said its market share is closer to 10 percent. Its No. 7 Winston brand remained at 2 percent, while Kool and Maverick remained tied for No. 8 at 1.8 percent.

Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog said that “in terms of specific company trends, total nicotine sales declines improved across the board for Altria, BAT, Imperial and Juul, while decelerating for all other manufacturers broadly in the latest period.”

The decline in cigarette sales continues at a strong pace, said David Sweanor, an adjunct law professor at the University of Ottawa and the author of several e-cigarette and health studies.

“Yet, as Altria results showed and Barclays recently highlighted, much of this is due to cross-category migration,” Sweanor said.

“People are switching to far lower-risk options. But disposable vaping products appear to currently be the greatest factor in this migration.”

TD Cowen analyst Vivian Azer said consumers’ cigarette “downtrading to discount and deep discount continues to benefit Imperial’s share trends.”