The Economic Crisis not affected Tobacco Company
Economic crisis affected the income of a lot of companies except tobacco companies. Tobacco companies remain unaffected to the global economic downturn, said scientists.
According to a recent data released by Sampoerna, an Indonesian tobacco company whose cigarette brands are smoked by millions of Indonesians, cigarette sales totaled 59.6 billion sticks between January and March this year as against 53.5 billion sticks recorded in the same period last year.
Around 59.7 percent of the first quarter sales comprised machine-rolled clove cigarettes, 32.2 percent hand-rolled clove cigarettes and 8 percent machine-rolled non-clove cigarettes. While order a 2.5 percent ascend in sales volume to 18.1 billion sticks from 17.7 billion, the market share of Sampoerna-branded cigarettes fell to 24.3 percent from 25 percent.
The consolidated market share of the Sampoerna brand and the Philip Morris brand was also very slightly down to 29 percent from 29.5 percent. But the Philip Morris market share rose to 4.7 percent from 4.5 percent. Sampoerna is controlled by US biggest cigarette company, Philip Morris.
The cigarette sales of the Sampoerna Company have declined slightly, but the Indonesian company didn’t want to explain the cause of this decline.
The company’s president director, Kevin Douglas Click, said only that he was glad if the sales would remain stronger this year. As it is known Indonesia is a refuge for smokers as Vice President Jusuf Kalla which said that the country had the cheapest cigarette prices in the world due to its low excise taxes.
Apart from Sampoerna and Philip Morris, the Indonesia also houses five other famous large tobacco companies: PT Gudang Garam, PT Djarum, PT Nojorono, PT Bentoel, and PT British American Tobacco (BAT) Indonesia. The BAT Indonesia’s principal activities are manufacturing, marketing and distributing cigars, cigarettes and other products made from tobacco.
Sampoerna’s rival openly listed BAT, which sells international brands including Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Dunhill, Ardath, Kansas and Commfil, said researchers.
Nevertheless, the company suffered a decline in its market share during the first quarter of the year to 2 percent down from 2.5 percent compared to the same period last year.
