Kick around question of the week: Where do you see Habanos/Cuban Cigars in 5 years?

[El Presidente]

Kick around question of the week: Where do you see Habanos/Cuban Cigars in 5 years? 

We are slowly getting to the "pointy end" of the Trump Administration's engagement with Diaz/Cuba. 

The end result will no doubt have ramifications for Cuba generally and the Cuban Cigar industry. 

Habanos has sown it's path with it's marketing trajectory. Tabacuba (production) has it's own challenges. 

Crystal balling could see anything from "nothing changes" to "revolutionary rework of the system". 

If you had $1000 to bet on Kalshi (prediction market) as to the outcome right now...where would you put your money...and what is behind your thinking? 

* no, this isn't a free kick at the current US administration. Rather an objective take on how things may pan out in your mind. 

 

[JohnS]

I don't see things getting better for the Cuban cigar industry in five years time. In fact, I think that the branding awareness that they have freely handed to Non-Cuban manufacturers since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 will continue and they will struggle to re-establish their products as a luxury merchandise, in general. They will be forced to focus on value brands and staples such as Partagas and Romeo y Julieta Mille Fleurs, Montecristo No.4, Partagas Serie D No.4, Jose L. Piedra Cazadores et al.

So, in summary, they will be playing 'catch-up' with the innovations that New World producers will bring forth in the near future.

[Duder]

They seem so unbelievably resilient. I wouldn’t bet against them. Can’t imagine status quo though. Changes are coming but I couldn’t begin to guess what they will be. @JohnS response above is more plausible than anything I can predict. 

[joeypots]

Politically it's anyone's guess. I worry that if the embargo is ended the island will be able to gross more from their tobacco crop than finished cigars. Will the end of the embargo be the end of the Cuban puro?

[BG318]

Tough question. If I was betting I would put money on lower production higher prices, as it has been for the past few years.

I would happily donate the money to the cause to be wrong. Win, lose or draw though, it would be hard to imagine an ecosystem like the one created by Fab5 springing out of the current situation in Cuba. It's easier to build from start than to make revisions to an existing system in this instance. Not that birthing a business involving production in one country, warehousing in another and running financials in yet another sounds like a cake walk. But having the cards line up politically, financially ,agriculturally feels like a bridge too far.

[JohnS]

14 hours ago, JohnS said:

I don't see things getting better for the Cuban cigar industry in five years time. In fact, I think that the branding awareness that they have freely handed to Non-Cuban manufacturers since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 will continue and they will struggle to re-establish their products as a luxury merchandise, in general. They will be forced to focus on value brands and staples such as Partagas and Romeo y Julieta Mille Fleurs, Montecristo No.4, Partagas Serie D No.4, Jose L. Piedra Cazadores et al.

So, in summary, they will be playing 'catch-up' with the innovations that New World producers will bring forth in the near future.

Truthfully, I wish I could say something different but the principal problem remains their culture within their industry. Quite simply, they don't have the means to inspire innovation, inspire change in what they are doing to ensure real improvement. Compare that to New World manufacturers and the very essence of competition forces them to innovate or go out of business.

So, how did the Cuban Cigar industry make improvements in the past? Well, they brought in well-meaning outsiders such as Zino Davidoff or even Simon Chase who sagely assisted with the marketing behind the Limited and Regional Special Editions in the early to mid-2000s. Unfortunately, these type of individuals aren't around these days and we are left with Habanos S.A. been forced to turn to people of the ilk of Chen Zhi. We all saw where that led us.

[LordAnubis]

I don’t see much happening in the form of political change. I hope some breaks come the way of the Cuban people, but knowing the way of politics it’s going to get worse before it gets better for the people. 

I think if Cuban cigars ever get to the US market there will have to be a backtrack of the current low volume high price model. I don’t think there’s much appetite in the American market for high priced cigars and it would force Cuba's hand to get back to lower cost staple products. 

If there's no entry into US market, the current business model is working great, roll in prisons - sell to kings 😁

[westg]

2 hours ago, joeypots said:

Politically it's anyone's guess. I worry that if the embargo is ended the island will be able to gross more from their tobacco crop than finished cigars. Will the end of the embargo be the end of the Cuban puro?

Good point . !

[AshesToExcellence]

I wouldn’t bet on a squeeze, I’d bet on a slow decline dressed up as luxury. Yes, supply is tight. But this isn’t a controlled strategy, it’s a system under strain. Crops are inconsistent, infrastructure is shaky, and when blackouts start dictating production schedules, that’s not positioning… that’s survival. Habanos is doing what it can: raise prices, push premium, protect the image. And it is sort of working, for now. But here’s the part I’d put coin on: quality becomes even less consistent, availability gets more random, and prices keep climbing anyway. So instead of “fewer but better cigars,” I think we get fewer, pricier, and more hit-or-miss cigars, with the brand story doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

In 5 years, Cuban cigars won’t just be harder to get…they’ll be harder to trust box to box. Now, if the U.S. drops the embargo and the island receives investment, it’s not a reset, it’s a shock to the system. Short term? Chaos. You’d get a surge of demand overnight, every American smoker chasing Habanos like it’s 1998 again, but production can’t scale that fast. The same constraints are still there: farms, fermentation, rollers, infrastructure.

You can’t rush Cuban tobacco without ruining it. So initially shelves get wiped, prices spike even higher, and availability gets worse, not better. Now longer term (if the investment is real and sustained), that’s where it gets interesting as capital could stabilize farming and curing, infrastructure (power, transport, storage) could actually improve, and talent retention might get better if people are paid properly. But here’s the catch: Cuban cigars depend on tradition, not optimization. Push too hard with outside capital and you risk turning Habanos into something more efficient…and less Cuban. So a humble bet, even in a best-case U.S. opening: you don’t get cheaper cigars, you don’t get mass availability, you just get better infrastructure + still-limited, still-premium product. And maybe, just maybe, a bit more consistency.

[zacca]

I have to agree with @joeypots here. I think they’ll realize the value of their tobacco and will start ramping up exports at the expense of finished cigars. 

Any lifting of the embargo, capital coming in, and improvements in the supply chain are way more than 5 years away. If that materializes, you’re probably talking about a generation for all the pieces to fall into place.

[chasy]

We should pool our money and try to buy a Marca from the Cuban govt. Maybe something that’s been discontinued…

[Chibearsv]

2 hours ago, chasy said:

We should pool our money and try to buy a Marca from the Cuban govt. Maybe something that’s been discontinued…

I'm always in for $20 

[BrightonCorgi]

5 years from now will be more like what it is today than what it was 5 years ago. Habanos S.A. seems fine continuing in a c**p situation. They'll continue to slowly lose shelf space and consumer affection. 

With wine there are chateaus that were big names and fell into disarray. Eventually someone steps and revives (things). It'll have to be a similar situation with the Habanos industry. It's a little different (with Habanos cigars) in that the product is still great, but every other facet of the business sucks.  

Best thing that can happen is that China moves on to the next shiny thing. Government cracks down on smoking or the like.

[helix]

Think there is a big trust issue with Cuban cigars that will hurt the brand going forward as well, construction issues authenticity etc.

[Dadof3]

Did the ownership share headed by that recently arrested individual get sorted out?  If a new investor steps in perhaps that can help upgrade things a bit for the process? Failing that, it's really anyone's guess if the current US administration actually forces things with Cuba given the seemingly slow results with the current conflict.  

[Chibearsv]

On 4/13/2026 at 3:32 PM, joeypots said:

Politically it's anyone's guess. I worry that if the embargo is ended the island will be able to gross more from their tobacco crop than finished cigars. Will the end of the embargo be the end of the Cuban puro?

Would the tobacco as a cash crop yield higher profit than cigar production?  If so, wouldn't there be plenty of buyers right now?

[joeprice28]

I suspect the modal outcome over the next five years is neither collapse nor renaissance, but a constrained equilibrium shaped by three structural frictions: production capacity, institutional inertia, and shifting demand.

Firstly, Cuba’s comparative advantage remains upstream, terroir and seed genetics, yet its downstream execution (construction consistency, logistics, quality control) continues to lag. That creates a growing asymmetry where the idea of Habanos retains pricing power, even as the product experience becomes more variable. Several comments here rightly point to an emerging “trust deficit,” which, in luxury markets, is far more damaging than simple scarcity. 

Secondly, even in a hypothetical easing of the embargo, the adjustment function is slow. Tobacco is agricultural, but cigars are artisanal manufacturing layered on top of it. You cannot compress fermentation cycles, workforce training, or infrastructure upgrades without degrading the core product. So, any demand shock, particularly from U.S. re-entry, would likely exacerbate short-term scarcity and price inflation rather than normalize the market.

Thirdly, the most under-discussed risk is substitution. Since 2020, New World producers have not only captured market share but have meaningfully closed the experiential gap while exceeding Cuba in consistency and innovation. That is not merely cyclical competition; it is structural. Once consumer habits reset, especially at the premium end, they tend to persist. On the question of exporting raw tobacco versus finished puros: economically, it’s plausible at the margin, particularly if capital constraints persist. But strategically, it would represent a partial forfeiture of Cuba’s greatest asset, brand equity embedded in the finished good. I would expect selective expansion of leaf exports, not wholesale substitution.

If I had to place a bet: modestly lower effective output, continued premiumization, widening intra-box variability, and gradual erosion of cultural primacy, offset, but not reversed, by episodic demand spikes tied to geopolitical developments.

In summary, not a decline in absolute terms, but a relative decline in influence. My two cents, anyway. 

[Duder]

26 minutes ago, Chibearsv said:

Would the tobacco as a cash crop yield higher profit than cigar production?  If so, wouldn't there be plenty of buyers right now?

Does not seem possible to me. They would have to charge multiples that would price out every NC producer.  

[El Presidente]

5 hours ago, Chibearsv said:

Would the tobacco as a cash crop yield higher profit than cigar production?  If so, wouldn't there be plenty of buyers right now?

No it wouldn't. I reckon you would get $35-$40 a pound for Cuban wrapper compared for $25 a pound for top end NC wrapper. 

It would be an interesting exercise to calculate. You would need accurate yield and make plenty of assumptions. 

[joeypots]

5 hours ago, Chibearsv said:

Would the tobacco as a cash crop yield higher profit than cigar production?  If so, wouldn't there be plenty of buyers right now?

I think the risk to New World producers using Cuban tobacco would be the risk of having all of their cigars embargoed by the USA. So Fuente, for instance, might blend a cigar using Cuban tobacco and risk having all of their cigars wrapped into the Cuban embargo. How does one know which of their cigars are blended with Cuban tobacco and which ones are not? 

My thought is that if this was not the case the big guys would have been using Cuban tobacco all along. But, I'm just thinking out loud here.

[wooly]

22 hours ago, El Presidente said:

No it wouldn't. I reckon you would get $35-$40 a pound for Cuban wrapper compared for $25 a pound for top end NC wrapper. 

It would be an interesting exercise to calculate. You would need accurate yield and make plenty of assumptions. 

Surely the greater challenge with selling it as a cash crop, is guarantee of the crop. Unless it was purely sold at point of bailing, but that wouldn't work for any long term production pipeline. The hit/miss rate would be horrendous.

I think the summary someone posted above of, like today, but lower supply and worse QC is probably most aligned with reality on it. 

I'm more concerned that if US investment was allowed, we'd see over fertilising / industrial processes being brought in which would fundamentally change the soil/crop for generations all in a bid for a quick turn around on Cuban product.