Japan FY 2020 cigarette sales dive on shift to vaping amid pandemic

Japan's cigarette sales in fiscal 2020 fell below 100 billion for the first time in decades, as more smokers apparently opted to use heated tobacco products amid the spread of teleworking due to the coronavirus pandemic, industry data showed. In the year that ended in March, sales of rolled tobacco products plunged by a record 16.3 percent from the year before to 98.8 billion sticks, the lowest since fiscal 1990 when comparable data became available, according to the Tobacco Institute of Japan. The figure represents more than a 70 percent drop from fiscal 1996 when sales peaked at 348.3 billio...