Imperial Tobacco boasts the runner-up position on the cigarettes market

2009-11-24

Imperial Tobacco Polska (ITP), the tobacco producer, informed that it has surpassed the runner-up on the tobacco market in Poland, British American Tobacco Polska (BAT), according to Puls Biznesu. ITP claims that from May 2009 to October 2009 it has climbed one place from the third position on the Polish cigarettes market worth PLN 20bn (€4.88bn) in terms of sales volume. The company’s market share by volume grew to 27.4%, which is 1.1 percentage points more than BAT’s share. Focusing on the three strategic brands, i.e. West, Route 66 and Davidoff has helped ITP to increase its sales. Moreover, in mid-2009 ITP has signed a contract with Ruch under which the latter has been displaying on kiosk windows only West and Davidoff brands versus other prominent brands such as Marlboro or Pall-Mall.
BAT claims, however, that considering a ten-month period it is BAT that surpasses ITP in terms of sales volume, as Krzysztof Kepinski, BAT’s spokeseman, quoted in the newspaper, explains. Moreover, in accordance with the research prepared by Nielsen that surveyed several thousand points of sales in Poland, BAT has had 31.9% market share, while ITP’s share accounted for 23.7% of the market from January to October 2009 in Poland.