Foreign cigarette manufacturers outperform KT&G

Foreign cigarette makers in Korea outperformed Korean brands in market share due to their low-price strategies.

According to data from the nation’s two convenience store chains, foreign brands earned about 55 percent market share in sales and 60 percent in volume in January, dethroning the long dominant KT&G, the only Korean cigarette-maker.

This is the first time in 29 years that KT&G lost its dominant market share against the the big-three foreign players. Philip Morris temporarily beat Korean products in sales when it first entered the local market with Marlboro in 1986.