Cigarettes in the U.S. - Statistics & Facts

Declining sales

In the United States, tobacco consumption has witnessed a sharp decline over the years. The number of cigarettes sold in the United States fell from nearly 400 billion in 2001 to about 203 billion in 2019. Interestingly, 2020 witnessed an increase in sales for the first time since 2004, although growth was a marginal 0.4 percent. In the face of dwindling sales, market leaders such as Philip Morris have managed to maintain a stable inflow of revenues, even increasing global net revenue from around 67 billion U.S. dollars in 2010 to over 76 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.

Barriers to consumption

Declining cigarettes sales could, in part, be due to growing public awareness of the health risks associated with smoking, coupled with the government’s effort to curb cigarettes consumption. Indeed, cigarettes taxes were as high as 4.50 U.S. dollars per pack of cigarettes in the District of Columbia as of July 2020. Whether taxation effectively reduces tobacco consumption is an unsettled question, but what is certain is that smoking rates in the United States have decreased considerably over the years.

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