Lorillard remains category leader with continued strong c-store sales.
By David Bennett, Senior Editor
Lorillard Inc.’s (LO) popular blu e-cigarette continues to garner strong sales, retaining its No. 1 spot in the c-store channel. Lorillard garnered 42.0% $ share in the recent period ended June 7, according to data from Wells Fargo Securities LLC.
Logic maintained its second place share position this period with a record 25.5% share, as NJOY retained the three spot with 9.9% share.
LO continues to lead the take-home channel as well with 44.3% share.
However, all category numbers aren’t rosy. E-cig sales continued to decline—16.6% drop in the same period ended June 7. In a continuation of decelerating e-cig trends, sales declined price has been negative for six sequential periods.
Wells Fargo senior analyst Bonnie Herzog attributed the negative pricing trends to increased penetration of kits which offer a lower price/cartomizer. Moreover, the sales decline is more reflective of volume moving to vapors-tanks-mods (VTMs) which tend to be sold in non-tracked channels, especially vape shops.