Tobacco shops pass the thousand billion forint threshold

Guest writer:
Zoltán Tóth
managing partner
MindZ

Estimation is that the value of Hungarian tobacco product sales reached HUF 940 billion in 2021 – this constitutes an approximately HUF 100 billion growth. This stunning rise was actually produced in a period when the volume sales of classic tobacco products decreased. On the contrary, sales of new-type, heated tobacco products doubled. As FMCG product sales are developing nicely in National Tobacco Shops, the total sales performance of these units surpassed the magical HUF 1,000 billion level.

The pandemic did no harm to tobacco retail – the majority of tobacco shops even managed to better their sales performance. However, 2022 is going to be a year full of challenges for the domestic tobacco product market, as besides the expected price increases, from 1 January cigarettes can only be marketed in plain packaging in the EU, and the impact of this can’t be predicted at the moment (although experts forecast a sales drop).

Based on the sales performance of Trafik.hu shops, we can say that FMCG products realise 25-30 percent of sales in tobacco shops. Digital POS communication in tobacco shops can motivate for impulse buying and at the same time help in brand building. DigInStore Zrt.’s TrafikTV solution can already be found in 700 National Tobaccos Shops.