Sales at Swedish Match increased by 2 per cent in the fourth quarter and by 4 per cent for the full year, compared to the corresponding periods in 2016, the company said in its full year report.

Swedish Match posted SEK 16.10 billion (EUR 1.62 billion) in sales for the January-December full year, up 4 per cent on the SEK 15.55 billion taken in 2016. Fourth-quarter sales reached SEK 4.04 billion, up 2 per cent on the corresponding period in 2016. The company said without negative currency translation the increases in sales would have been greater, at 3 per cent for the full year and 6 per cent for the fourth quarter.
At SEK 4.59 billion, operating profit for the full year was down 28 per cent in comparison to SEK 6.42 billion in 2016, due to the 2016 period including larger one-time capital gains of SEK 2.25 billion, the company said.
The snus maker sold 247.6 million cans of snus in Scandinavia in the full year, up 3 per cent on 2016. Fourth quarter snus sales in Scandinavian countries were up 6 per cent, at 66.4 million cans. Moist snuff volumes in the US were down 3 per cent for the full year at 127.4 million cans, while a 3 per cent positive change was seen in the fourth quarter with 27.9 million cans sold.
At home (including Norway), Swedish Match lost 2.1 per cent of its market share across snus categories over 2017, with total snus market share down from 67.3 per cent to 65.2 per cent. Within that, market share of premium and value snus products in Sweden, as well as total snus market share in Norway, were all down on 2016.
US shipments of cigars were up 11 per cent for the full year and 8 per cent for the fourth quarter, with 1.629 billion sticks and 398 million sticks shipped in those periods respectively. US chewing tobacco shipments meanwhile were down 5 per cent for the full year and down 6 per cent in the fourth quarter. The company shipped a total of 6.341 million pounds of chewing tobacco to the US in 2017, excluding contract manufacturing volumes.
CEO Lars Dahlgren said he was “very pleased with Swedish Match’s performance in 2017 – a year of solid growth, with higher sales and operating profit from product areas”.