Tobacco companies happy as cigarette sales are up

The falling sales trend of the last two years, by a total of almost 3 billion cigarettes, will come to an end, as sales grew for the third quarter in a row. According to the data in Q3 this year, 19.9 billion cigarettes were sold as compared to 19.4 billion a year earlier. "The main reason behind the sales growth is the price war between the largest producers in the cheap cigarettes sector which resulted in low prices of cheap international brands," said Piotr Szafrański, president of the Polish Association of the Tobacco Industry. "We are recording continuous sales growth. In Q3 the figure was over 500 million pieces higher (an increase of 41%) compared to the sales in Q3 2004," revealed Przemysław Filipowicz of Gallaher. (Puls Biznesu, p. 11) A.K.