Cigar Imports to US Plummet.

[El Presidente]

Cigar Imports Off To Slow Start In 2025

 

Shipments of handmade, premium cigars fall by 8.7 percent

Jun 3, 2025 | By David Savona

The first two months of 2025 have not been great ones for the handmade cigar industry. Shipments to the United States were off 8.7 percent compared to the first two months of 2024, according to data released today by the Cigar Association of America.

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[JohnS]

And this data does not take into account the tariff changes announced at the beginning of the second quarter of 2025 (i.e in April this year)! Since then, a number of cigar manufacturers have had to raise prices. Not good...not good at all!

[El Presidente]

Would love John's (CigarSurgeon) input on this one. 

 

[BrightonCorgi]

I assume once the tariff dust settles, cigar imports will higher than last year to make up for the lull.

[El Presidente]

6 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

I assume once the tariff dust settles, cigar imports will higher than last year to make up for the lull.

Interestingly, this occured before the Tariffs were announced 

[chasy]

A lot that could be going on, but silver lining is maybe there is a correlation between cigars imports to US and global cigar demand? Is this our first sign that Cuban pricing might be under pressure? (Wishful thinking, yes I know)

[MrBirdman]

My impression is that this has been in the cards for a while - stock levels have been growing since 2022 so it seemed clear the country was importing more cigars than it was smoking. The magnitude of the drop is a little higher than I would've expected though. 

[PuffyD]

I see this a lot in my pipe tobacco business where the FDA makes it very hard for manufacturers to introduce new permanent blends so they have to work around by introducing tons of Small Batch or limited edition tobacco blends. I see more cigar companies going this route as well like Davidoff Year of the Snake, AB Filthy Ghooligan etc. When companies target production toward small batches it drives numbers down but dollars up and premium incentive into the market. On the other hand, Scandinavian Tobacco Group overall sales were flat for 2024 but cigar sales were down 6% and they dominate the space so they are a bellwether for sure. 

[Cigar Surgeon]

22 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Would love John's (CigarSurgeon) input on this one. 

I think the cigar market is following the general / US economic trends. Lots of instability and uncertainty through Q1 and most of Q2 means people aren't spending like they were last year.

As said above: the price increases due to tariffs are only going to exasperate the situation.

Now all of that said: cigar imports through 2024 were at 430M cigars, which is nearly 100M more cigars than 2019. That's an insane increase that everyone in the industry has been openly acknowledging as unsustainable. 

[wjs]

4 hours ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

I think the cigar market is following the general / US economic trends. Lots of instability and uncertainty through Q1 and most of Q2 means people aren't spending like they were last year.

As said above: the price increases due to tariffs are only going to exasperate the situation.

Now all of that said: cigar imports through 2024 were at 430M cigars, which is nearly 100M more cigars than 2019. That's an insane increase that everyone in the industry has been openly acknowledging as unsustainable. 

The Venn diagram between cigars & wine never ceases to amaze. The wine business exploded during COVID which led folks to overproduce and now warehouses are full and numbers are off. But if you drew a line from 2019 to 2025 it would be right where you would expect over a longer trend line (reversion to the mean).

[chasy]

30 minutes ago, wjs said:

The Venn diagram between cigars & wine never ceases to amaze. The wine business exploded during COVID which led folks to overproduce and now warehouses are full and numbers are off. But if you drew a line from 2019 to 2025 it would be right where you would expect over a longer trend line (reversion to the mean).

Re wine - I don't understand why aged wine is sold at such a small premium to current harvest. Ie: a $50 current vintage or 2022 might cost $60 per bottle from 2012 (assuming no gang buster vintage). I'd gladly pay 10-20% premium for 10 years of aging. Hoping we see great buying opportunities in the next decade.

[wjs]

27 minutes ago, chasy said:

Re wine - I don't understand why aged wine is sold at such a small premium to current harvest. Ie: a $50 current vintage or 2022 might cost $60 per bottle from 2012 (assuming no gang buster vintage). I'd gladly pay 10-20% premium for 10 years of aging. Hoping we see great buying opportunities in the next decade.

The premiums are there relative to the original purchase price but the overall retail price of wine has really taken off in the past 20 years. Using your example, a particular wine in 2012 may have been $100 but the 2022 release of that wine may be $180. So you'd likely find the 2012 at $180-200 which is incredibly competitive to the current release price but double what it cost a decade ago. And folks just don't trust storage so unless you are a proven, bullet proof reseller, you tend to take a gamblers risk/discount.

[MrBirdman]

2 hours ago, chasy said:

Re wine - I don't understand why aged wine is sold at such a small premium to current harvest. Ie: a $50 current vintage or 2022 might cost $60 per bottle from 2012 (assuming no gang buster vintage). I'd gladly pay 10-20% premium for 10 years of aging. Hoping we see great buying opportunities in the next decade.

@wjs is spot on above, and I would just add that most $50 and under wines in the US are meant to be drunk fresh(ish). 

If you look at higher end wines like Napa, Champagne, Burgundy (oy!), the premiums can be a good deal higher than 10% depending on the rarity. I stopped buying them because I drink much less now and because of the storage lottery. I bought a case of 6 1994 Taylor’s and they were all cooked (somewhere along the line they sat in a hot warehouse/car). That experience cured me. 

One category that’s not too difficult to find aged at retail if you look hard is vintage port. The total wine near me had some 1985 bottles for sale last time I was there.