2004 Cigar Imports Revised Downward

From Rich Perelman at CigarCyclopedia:

Statistics are much more an art than a science. If you’re a sports fan, you know what I mean. You can use statistics to prove just about anything, but you rarely find someone who will inform you when the numbers change afterward.

But that’s what the Cigar Association of America did this week as they completed a revision on the number of imported, premium cigars into the U.S. from 2001 through last year. The results showed a decrease in the number of premiums actually imported into the U.S., thus:

• 2001: now estimated at 249,297,000

• 2002: now estimated at 250,364,000

• 2003: now estimated at 257,665,000

• 2004: now estimated at 282,135,00

The 2004 figure is down from an original estimate of more than 304 million, which would have been the first time since 1998 that imports surpassed 300 million and only the third time ever.

Nevertheless, if we throw out the “fad” years of 1997 (417.8 million) and 1998 (334.6 million), imports have increased each and every year since 1994. Moreover, the 282.1 million figure for 2004 is the third-highest ever.

The changes came from new figures supplied by the three companies which import machine-made cigars from the Dominican Republic, primarily Altadis U.S.A. and General Cigar. Even so, the continuous rise in cigar imports is impressive, as is the restated increase of almost 8% in first-quarter 2005 imports compared to 2004. At that rate, we’ll hit 304 million, just a year later than we first reported!

Posted on Friday, June 3rd, 2005 at 2:56 pm.