Cigar Imports Down Slightly Through July 2023
Premium, handmade cigars are still pouring into the United States, but the latest data from the Cigar Association of America shows a decrease of 3.4 percent in imports when compared to the same period in 2022. The decrease is not entirely unexpected, but it wasn’t as pronounced as the decline in first quarter imports, which were down 8.8 percent.
Between January and July, 252.8 million handmade, premium cigars were shipped to the United States, which is the world’s largest market for cigars. Nicaragua remains the leading producer, with shipments of 139.1 million (55 percent of all imports). The Dominican Republic ranks second, with 72.9 million cigars shipped (28.8 percent market share) and Honduras is the third leading producer, with 39.8 million (15.7 percent). These three accounted for 99.5 percent of all shipments, showing the utter dominance of this trio of cigar-producing nations.
The Dominican Republic was the sole producer showing an increase for the first seven months of the year, with shipments up nearly five percent. Both Nicaragua and Honduras showed decreases.
Looking at the year so far, things have been up and down. January and February 2023 were very similar to the same months of 2022; March and April showed big declines (14 percent and 15 percent, respectively) and May showed a 13 percent increase over May 2022. June and July were statistically close to last year’s numbers.
Cigar imports rose 1.8 percent in 2022, to 464.4 million cigars. If the current rate of decline would hold for the entire year, we would end up with just shy of 450 million cigars imported.
The years of substantial growth in American cigar sales has been dubbed “The New Cigar Boom.” While these numbers are down a bit from 2022 levels, they are still very impressive when compared to numbers from only a few years ago. Shipments for a full year were less than 240 million annually between 2014 and 2017. Before The New Cigar Boom, imports hadn’t reached the 400 million mark since 1997.
A small slowdown like this is expected—and many months of data remain before we can fully judge 2023.
“While 2023 growth has been somewhat muted, it comes after two years of unusual growth,” says David M. Ozgo, president of the Cigar Association of America.
