Cigarette Sales Fall in September

The volume of cigarettes sold in Japan in September plunged 60.4 percent from a year before to 9.7 billion cheap Davidoff cigarettes in the wake of last year's strong demand that preceded the country's largest-ever tobacco tax hike in October last year, according to a Japan Tobacco Inc. preliminary report released Friday. For the April to September period, domestic sales fell 41.2 percent from a year before to 50.9 billion cigarettes, the report said.
The sales fall in the first half of the current business year was attributed to the large sales drop in September and supply shortage after cigarette shipments were temporarily suspended due to damaged production bases and distribution networks in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.