Cigarette sales decline in Korea as e-cigarette demand surges

Cigarettes on sales at a convenience store in Seoul in December 2020. [YONHAP]

Sales of cigarettes in Korea inched down in 2023 for the first time in four years, but demand for electronic cigarettes logged a marked growth, the finance ministry said Wednesday.

Koreans purchased 3.61 billion 20-cigarette packs last year, down 0.6 percent from the previous year's 3.63 billion packs, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

It was the first on-year fall since 2019, when sales lost 0.7 percent on-year.

But sales of duty-free cigarettes surged 60.7 percent on-year to 140 million packs in 2023 in line with the growth in the number of tourists after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Taken all together, tobacco sales went up 0.8 percent to 3.74 billion packs in 2023, the second consecutive year of growth, the ministry said.

By type, sales of traditional cigarettes fell 2.8 percent on-year to 3 billion packs last year, while those of heat-not-burn electronic cigarettes advanced 12.6 percent to 610 million packs.

The proportion of e-cigarettes has been on a constant increase recently to come to 16.9 percent of the total sales in 2023 from 2.2 percent in 2017, 10.5 percent in 2019 and 12.4 percent in 2021.

As of 2021, the smoking rate among Korean men aged 19 or older had come to a record low of 19.3 percent, government data showed.

To reduce smoking, the government raised the price of cigarettes by 80 percent in January 2015 from 2,500 won ($1.88) per pack to 4,500 won.

In 2021, the health ministry announced a plan to raise the price further to around 8,000 won over the decade to promote public health.

The government has also mandated that tobacco companies place graphic images depicting the harmful effects of smoking on cigarette packs.

Yonhap