Table 1.
Legal and illegal cigarettes sales in Thailand, 1986-2006.
| Year | Total legal sales (millions of sticks) |
Estimates of contraband sales in millions of sticks (percentage of total sales) |
British American Tobacco estimates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 29,473 | 1000 - 2000 (3.4% - 6.8%) |
Total legal sales: 30 billion cigarettes Contraband: 360 million (12%) [estimate of total contraband] (Ivey 1987, Davidson 1991) |
| 1987 | 31,155 | 1000 - 2000 (3.2% -6.4%) |
|
| 1988 | 31,780 | 1000 – 2000 (3.1% - 6.2%) |
Total transit volume: 80-100 million per month, “and possibly substantially more.” (800 -1200mn) BAT’s monthly transit volume: 22 million cigarettes (264mn) (Norsworthy 1988) |
| 1989 | 32,250 | 1,000 - 2,000 (3.1% - 6.2%) |
Total transit: 2-3 billion cigarettes annually BAT: 249 mn (Norsworthy, 1990) |
| 1990 | 32,730 | 1,000 - 2,000 (3.0% - 6.0%) |
Total sales: 41 billion Transit: 1 billion [estimate of total contraband] (Benwell, 1990) |
| 1991 | 38,960 | 1,000 - 2,000 (3.0% - 6.0%) |
BAT transit volume: 8-10 million cigarettes per month (Davidson, 1991) |
| 1992 | 40,680 | 1,057 (2.6%) |
|
| 1993 | 42,580 | 1,490 (3.5%) |
|
| 1994 | 46,520 | 1,953 (4.2%) |
Transit: 1.95 billion (4.2% of total market) (British American Tobacco, 1995a) |
| 1995 | 43,420 | 3,690 (8.5%) |
Total sales: 50.3 billion Contraband: 5 billion (Benwell, 1990) |
| 1996 | 49,260 | 6,058 (12.3%) |
|
| 1997 | 48,320 | 7,199 (14.9%) |
|
| 1998 | 39,020 | 6,555 (16.8%) |
|
| 1999 | 36,180 | 5,499 (15.2%) |
|
| 2000 | 36,480 | 5,362 (14.7%) |
|
| 2001 | 34,600 | 4,567 (13.2%) |
|
| 2002 | 34,800 | 3,514 (10.1%) |
|
| 2003 | 38,080 | 2,399 (6.3%) |
|
| 2004 | 42,200 | 2,911 (6.9%) |
|
| 2005 | 43,680 | 4,368 (10.0%) |
|
| 2006 | 36,020 | 2,629 (7.3%) |
Notes:
‘Sticks’ refers to individual cigarettes.
Column 1: Figures for total legal sales of cigarettes taken from Thailand Ministry of Public Health (2011) and Euromonitor International (2013a).
Column 2: Indicates estimated volume of contraband sales in millions of cigarettes with percentage of total (legal plus contraband) sales in brackets. Estimates from Hayes (1988) are for the years 1985-1990, and from Pavananunt (2009, 2011) for 1990-2011.
Column 3: Indicates BAT estimates of contraband sales by selected years located in company documents. These are for total contraband and/or BAT contraband as indicated. Name of document author and year are listed in brackets.