NEW YORK-- With much of the channel seeing the continued and often talked about decline of the tobacco category, analyst Bonnie Herzog described the recent quarter’s cigarette sales as “soft,” pointing to decelerating volume as the main culprit.
In a recent newsletter, Herzog, marketing director of beverage, tobacco and convenience-store research for Wells Fargo Securities LLC, New York, said cigarette dollar sales decreased by 1.9% in the four-week period ending Dec. 31, 2016. The drop came amid a “solid” pricing increase of 3.5% and decelerating volume of 5.3%. She described cigarette sales figures from Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American Inc. and Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group as “flat” over a recent 12-week period.
Here’s how four c-store chains described recent activity in the tobacco category …