General Cigar Parent Reports Increased Second Quarter Sales
With the cigar industry booming in the United States, Scandinavian Tobacco Group, one of the world’s largest cigar companies, is reporting increased sales. The Danish company reported an increase in second quarter sales and a generally positive 2021.
Second quarter sales were 2.2 billion Danish kroner ($339 million), up 7.5 percent from the second quarter of 2020. The company said the growth in sales was “primarily driven by a continued high demand in handmade cigars in the U.S.,” along with the incorporation of Agio Cigars, which STG acquired in January 2020 for $235 million. The strong results were also expected, given the comparison to the second quarter of 2020, which was impacted by the pandemic.
For the first half of 2021, STG’s sales are up 9.8 percent, to 4 billion kroner ($628 million).
“We expect continued high demand for handmade cigars for the rest of the year and we are raising our financial expectations for 2021 to reflect that,” said STG chief executive officer Niels Frederiksen. The company revised its predictions for the full year, and is now expecting growth of up to 20 percent over 2020’s numbers.
STG’s portfolio includes a host of premium cigar brands, among them Macanudo, CAO and La Gloria Cubana, via its wholly owned subsidiaries General Cigar Co. and Forged Cigar Co. It also owns Cigars International, which is widely considered to be the largest catalog and online cigar retailer in the world.
