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Cigarette sales fall for 2nd consecutive year in 2024

Published: 18 Apr. 2025, 12:18

A person holds a box of cigarettes at a convenience store in Seoul on Dec. 23 last year. [YONHAP]

Cigarette sales in Korea fell for the second consecutive year in 2024, though demand for electronic cigarettes logged marked growth, the Ministry of Economy and Financesaid Friday.

Koreans purchased 3.53 billion packs of 20-cigarette units last year, down 2.2 percent from 3.61 billion packs in 2023, according to the Finance Ministry.

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It was the second straight annual decline, following a 0.6 percent on-year decrease in 2023.

Taken together with duty-free cigarettes, total tobacco sales went down 1.7 percent on year to 3.68 billion packs in 2024, the ministry said.

By type, sales of traditional cigarettes fell 4.3 percent on year to 2.87 billion packs last year, marking the fourth consecutive year of decline.

But heat-not-burn e-cigarette sales advanced 8.3 percent to 660 million packs.

The proportion of e-cigarettes has been on a constant rise in recent years, from 2.2 percent in 2017 to 10.5 percent in 2019, 12.4 percent in 2021 and further to 18.4 percent of the total sales in 2024.

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

Yonhap