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Los Angeles, May 28 – Cigar company executives thought 2008 might see a bit of a downtown in cigar sales.

They may be right.

Although overall cigar sales are essentially flat through the first quarter of 2008, premium sales are apparently down somewhat according to the latest figures from the Cigar Association of America.

“Apparently” is the best that can be said since previous statistics are not comparable to the 2008 numbers due an unknown number of little cigars that were included in the premium count for 2007 and before. These have been factored out in 2008, leaving a purer measurement of premium (handmade) cigars coming into the U.S.:

  • For March, some 19.4 million premium cigars came into the country, down from the 25.8 million from last year (that included some little cigars). The Dominican Republic was, as usual, the leader, with 8.57 million premium cigars or 44.2 percent of the total. Nicaragua was second with 5.44 million, an increase over last year and 28.0 percent and Honduras was a very close third with 5.38 million (27.7%). The “big three” accounted for 99.9 percent of all imports, with a few thousand cigars coming in from Costa Rica and Mexico.

  • For the first quarter of 2008, the import total of 51.7 million was good, but down 14.25 percent from last year’s figures (including some little cigars). The Dominican was again tops with 22.84 million (44.2%), followed by Nicaragua at 14.60 million (28.2%) with Honduras at 13.66 million (26.4%). That’s 98.8 percent of all imports with small amounts from Mexico, the Philippines and Costa Rica.

    It’s worth noting that Nicaragua’s figures are actually up over last year by 15 percent, showing the country’s continuing growth in the cigar world. The average declared value per cigar from Nicaragua is also up to 60.5 cents each, a rise of more than 40 percent from just a few years ago. That’s good, too, for the Nicaraguan cigar workers.

    Although premium cigar imports appear to be down somewhat, the overall import picture for cigars in the U.S. remains good. Large cigar imports – premium and machine-made – actually increased for the first quarter, from 174.0 million in 2007 to 190.8 million in 2008, a healthy rise of 9.6 percent!

    Little cigar imports decreased during the first quarter by about 10 percent, so the overall cigar import totals remained essentially flat. For the first three months of 2008, total U.S. cigar imports totaled 281.1 million compared to 273.7 million last year, a very modest increase of 2.7 percent, but still an increase.

    The Dominican Republic continued to dominate the import picture. It provided 137.9 million of the 282.1 million import total or an astonishing 49.0 percent. The second largest producer of cigar imports was India – almost all of which were little cigars – at 37.7 million, followed by Honduras (30.7 million), Nicaragua (24.8 million) and Colombia (20.7 million).

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