Cigar News:
Cigar Aficionado recently published a very comprehensive article on the best selling cigar brands along with other data. What interested me besides the rankings was how dominating the big brands are. Smaller boutique brands are not making a real dent in any ranking system if total numbers and sales are the main concern.
We spend a great deal of time reviewing niche brands or reading about them in blogs but clearly the market is still dominated by the heavy hitters.
Several questions struck me right away.
1.Will the players eventually buy out the small companies in order to control the market even more so?
2. Will many of the small brands drop out as the FDA puts the squeeze on the cigar industry in general ?
3. Will the type of cigars we tend to like change or will the market make the decision for us?
4. How will the quality be impacted as the large companies grab even more of a percentage of the overall market?
I only am focusing on the market share in this article found originally in Cigar Insider. To me it raises many questions about the cigar industry in general and how will the boutique companies survive?
Keep smoking
