Sales bounce back

Cigarette sales, which tumbled in South Korea in the wake of a huge tax-induced price increase at the start of 2015, rebounded sharply last year, according to a story in The Korea Economic Daily.

The Daily reported Nielsen Korea as saying on January 22 that about 72.9 billion cigarettes had been sold in Korea last year, up 9.3 percent from the 66.7 billion sold in 2015.

In 2014, the year before the 80 percent price increase, cigarette sales reached 85.3 billion, about 17 percent higher than the 2016 figure.

The 2014 figure was inflated by speculative buying ahead of the hike in cigarette prices in January 2015.