This section presents available information on the market share and brand share of tobacco products in Australia including cigarettes, loose tobacco, cigars and cigarillos. Data on market and brand share based on sales volumes are extremely limited, usually only available to purchase through commercial sources or publicly available in sporadic industry reports. The information used in this section is largely sourced from subscription commercial sources up to 2017. With mandatory reporting from tobacco companies operating in Australia coming into effect from 1 July 2025, more contemporary data is expected to be available in the future. Detail about the products currently available in the Australian tobacco market is presented in Section 10.5.
The tobacco market can be understood and quantified in several different ways: by enumerating the number and range of products available for sale; by quantifying the percentage of people who smoke who report using each brand and product; and, most usefully (but least frequently in Australia), by quantifying the volume of sales of each type of product, or the dollar value of products sold. Data on brand preferences is not routinely asked in large national surveys, and mandatory reporting from tobacco companies on the volumes of tobacco imports has not been required in Australia before July 2025.
No data on sales of tobacco products in Australia are currently available in the public domain. Market share data have been collected and analysed by several market research groups. Data on sales in grocery stores has been compiled by Retail World magazine, and was published annually in its end-of-year reports, based on a survey of supermarkets and grocery outlets about sales for previous 12 months up to the month of (roughly) September each year until 2014.1 The Nielsen group on the other hand compiled data on sales of products in convenience outlets.2 Annual grocery sales have not been reported for the last ten years, and data from convenience sources has also only rarely been published in publicly available sources. Euromonitor International compiles annual data on the total market across all outlets. Data on changes in market share over time for cigarettes of various tobacco blend, pack size and price segment are also compiled by Euromonitor and are available for purchase.3 Similarly, IBISWorld publishes reports available for purchase on the performance of major companies and industries in the Australian retail market.4,5
10.4.1 Market share by tobacco company
Cigarettes in Australia have almost exclusively been manufactured by three major industry groups: British American Tobacco Australia (BATA), Philip Morris International (PMI), and Imperial Tobacco Australia (ITA). Several smaller tobacco importers have limited product ranges available in Australia, including Richland Express and Patron Group. Using data provided by ‘industry participants’, a 2024 report by FTI Consulting reported market share for factory-made cigarettes (FMCs) and loose tobacco (primarily roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco) in 2023. Figure 10.4.1 shows that British American Tobacco Australia held the largest market share for FMCs at 36.4%, and a similar proportion of the loose tobacco market (36.7%). Philip Morris International held just over one-third of the FMC market, and 16.2% of the loose tobacco market. In contrast, Imperial Tobacco Australia held 28.1% of the FMC market and the largest share of the loose market at 46.1%. Collectively, these three multinational companies held 98.6% and 99.0% of the Australian FMC and loose tobacco markets, respectively.
10.4.1.1 Past sales figures relevant to market share: cigarettes
Table 10.4.1 shows the market share of tobacco companies in Australia by cigarette volume in from 2012 to 2017.7 Over this period, the market share for British American Tobacco and Philip Morris steadily declined by 5 to 6 percentage points, while Imperial Brands increased market share by 11 percentage points, overtaking Philip Morris as the second largest cigarette company in 2017. Much of this increase occurred between 2013 and 2014. In 2017, British American Tobacco’s market share represented sales of 5.4 billion cigarette sticks, Imperial Brand’s market share represented 4.3 billion sticks, and Philip Morris’s market share represented 4.0 billion sticks. All other companies collectively represented 464 million cigarette sticks in 2017.
10.4.1.2 Past sales figures relevant to market share: loose tobacco market
Until the late 2010s, the Australian smoking tobacco market (including roll-your-own and pipe tobacco) dominated by two major international tobacco companies, collectively accounting for about 95% of sales. Table 10.4.2 shows the volume market share of the smoking tobacco market by tobacco company from 2012 to 2017. In 2017 Imperial Brands accounted for two-thirds of the volume of the smoking tobacco market. British American Tobacco’s share was 27.8%7.
10.4.1.3 Past sales figures relevant to market share: cigars
As with all tobacco products, cigars sold in Australia are imported, and the major Australian cigarette companies are not the only tobacco companies to have substantial engagement in the cigar market. Table 10.4.3 shows the market share of cigars by tobacco company from 2012 to 2017. The market share for Scandinavian Tobacco Group increased to almost 60% in 2017, almost double that of the next largest company, Philip Morris.
10.4.1.4 Past sales figures relevant to market share: cigarillos
As with cigars, the cigarillo market has also been dominated by importers other than the major Australian cigarette and smoking tobacco companies. Cigarillos are ‘little cigars’, typically sold in packs of five or ten sticks. Cigarillos are also sold in major supermarkets. Table 10.4.4 shows the market share of cigarillos by tobacco company from 2012 to 2017. As with cigars, Scandinavian Tobacco Group dominated the market with more than 60% of the volume, followed by Philip Morris with 26.3%.
10.4.2 Market share by price segment
Super-value brands emerged on the Australian market in the late 2000s. This fourth market segment has rapidly grown in size and market share ever since–see Section 10.7 and Section 13.4. Figure 10.4.2 plots sales volume data from the grocery-only sector up to 2014, overall and by market segment from the grocery trade publication Retail World.8-16 Since 2009, steady declines in sales of premium brands (including Alpine, Benson & Hedges, Dunhill, Marlboro and Peter Stuyvesant) and mainstream brands (including Winfield, Longbeach, Peter Jackson, Escort) can be observed. Sales of traditional value brands such as Horizon, Holiday, and Choice increased until about 2009, and then gradually declined in volume. Over this same period, several newly introduced super-value brands including Bond Street, JPS, and Rothmans rapidly gained market share, particularly from 2012 onward. In terms of volume, super-value brands overtook premium brands in grocery-only sales in 2014.
Figure 10.4.3 shows sales of factory-made cigarettes in Australia from 2008 to 2023 by price segment, as reported by FTI Consulting.17 Assuming the low price segment is comparable to the supervalue and value brands, this report shows strong congruence with the grocery-only data reported in Figure 10.4.2. In 2008, supervalue and value brands accounted for 27% of grocery cigarette sales, while the low price segment accounted for 29% of all sales. In 2014, supervalue and value brands accounted for 45% of grocery cigarette sales, compared to 48% of the whole market reported in Figure 10.4.3. The low price segment has continued to grow in market share, so that in 2023 79% of cigarette sales were from the low price segment, 15% from the medium price segment and 6% from the high price segment.
In reporting market performance in Australia in its 2024 annual report, Imperial Tobacco noted a ‘fifth price segment’, citing the brand Lambert & Butler (established in 2021) as a brand in that category.6
10.4.3 Past data relevant to brand share
Data on the leading brands within each product type, ranked by retail volume, as reported by Euromonitor for the year 2017, are presented in Tables 10.4.5 to 10.4.8. In 2017, JPS continued to be the leading factory-made cigarette brand in Australia after overtaking Winfield in 2016.18 JPS was launched in Australia in 2009,19 and was one of the first supervalue brands on the Australian cigarette market.
Table 10.4.6 then shows the leading smoking tobacco brands (all roll-your-own brands) in 2017, ranked by volume. As of 2017, leading brands of smoking tobacco in Australia were Champion, Drum, White Ox, and JPS produced by Imperial Brands, and Winfield produced by British American Tobacco. These are all roll-your-own tobacco brands, not pipe tobacco.
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References
1. Anon. Discussion with retail world staff, in Retail World. 2014.
2. Nielsen IQ. 2024. Last update: Viewed Available from: https://nielseniq.com/global/en/.
3. Euromonitor International. Tobacco in Australia - 2008 to 2013, Available for purchase. London: Euromonitor International, 2014. Available from: http://www.euromonitor.com/tobacco.
4. Thomson J. Tobacco Product Wholesaling in Australia. IBISWorld, 2018. Available from: https://www.ibisworld.com/.
5. IBISWorld. Industry Report: Tobacco Product Wholesaling in Australia. 2024.
6. Imperial Brands. Annual Report and Accounts 2024. Bristol, UK: Imperial Brands Plc, 2024. Available from: https://www.imperialbrandsplc.com/investor-hub/annual-report-2024.
7. Euromonitor International. Tobacco in Australia—2016 and 2017. London: Euromonitor International, 2019. Available from: http://www.euromonitor.com/tobacco.
8. Retail World. Annual Report 2006. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2006; December:83.
9. Retail World. Annual Report 2007. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2007; (December):30.
10. Retail World. Annual Report 2008. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2008; December:30.
11. Retail World. Annual Report 2009. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2009; December:30.
12. World R. Annual Report 2010. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2010; December:30.
13. World R. Annual Report 2011. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2011; December:30.
14. Retail World. Annual Report 2012. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2012; December:30.
15. Retail World. Annual Report 2013. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2013; December:30.
16. Retail World. Annual Report 2014. Market sizes and shares. Retail World, 2014; December:30.
17. FTI Consulting. Illicit Tobacco in Australia 2023. 2024.
18. Euromonitor International. Tobacco in Australia. London: Euromonitor International, 2016. Available from: http://www.euromonitor.com/tobacco.
19. NSW Retail Tobacco Traders' Association. Price lists-cigarettes. The Australian Retail Tobacconist, 2009; 75(no. 2 Feb-Mar).