Swedish Match AB is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that makes snus, moist snuff, and chewing tobacco (with its Red Man brand). These products are known as moist smokeless tobacco. The company also makes machine-made cigars, matches, and lighters and sells batteries, light bulbs and disposable razors. Swedish Match operates in 11 countries and has 6,270 employees (average 2019). The products are sold globally, with a majority of sales originating in Scandinavia and the United States.

Market

While today’s Swedish Match still produces matches, the majority of its sales and operating profits comes from its smokeless tobacco products (snus and moist snuff) and other tobacco products (cigars and chewing tobacco). In 2014, these tobacco products accounted for 59 percent of sales and 93 percent of Swedish Match’s operating profit, whereas matches and lighters accounted for 10 percent of sales and 6 percent of operating profit. Swedish Match generates most of its sales in Scandinavia, the US, and Brazil (98 percent of company sales in 2013) but also has a significant worldwide presence through its matches and lighters businesses.

Snus and moist snuff

Scandinavia and the US are the primary markets for Swedish Match’s tobacco products. The company is market leader in snus in both Sweden and Norway. In 2014, the operating profit for snus and moist snuff increased to 2,207 MSEK (2,195 MSEK in 2013). The market for Scandinavian snus and the US moist snuff/snus is approximately 1.745 billion cans per year (345 million cans in Scandinavia and 1.4 billion cans in the US). The snus market in the US is about $175 million, and Swedish Match has about 10 percent of the market.

Cigars and chewing tobacco

In 2014, the US cigar market was estimated to more than 5 billion cigars (excluding little cigars) of which Swedish Match produced 1.1 billion sticks of cigars. The cigar market grew 9 percent compared to 2013 in terms of volume. Swedish Match’s share was even greater in the recent past, as a series of acquisitions between 1999 and 2010 including General Cigar and Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) which is the world’s largest cigar producer and manufactures more than 50 percent of the world’s pipe tobacco. Control of major brands such as Macanudo, Punch, Cohiba, CAO and La Gloria Cubana gave Swedish Match nearly 1/3 of the US premium cigar market in addition to its strong position in machine-made cigars. However, in 2014 Swedish Match, having reorganized its premium-cigar businesses under the STG umbrella, spun off STG as a public company. Swedish Match’s cigar business is now limited to machine-made mass-production brands such as White Owl and Garcia y Vega.

Two thirds of the chewing tobacco sold in the US is produced by Swedish Match. Chewing tobacco is a 275 million US dollar market (manufacturers’ sales). In 2014, the operating profit for cigars and chewing tobacco increased by 8 percent to 1,109 MSEK (1,029 MSEK in 2013). In addition, Swedish Match holds a 49 percent ownership in Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) which is the world’s largest cigar producer and manufactures more than 50 percent of the world’s pipe tobacco. The company produces 3 billion cigars and 5,000 tons of pipe tobacco per year.

Matches and lighters

Swedish Match supplies matches worldwide. The main markets for matches are Scandinavia, the UK, France, Spain, Australia and Brazil. For lighters, the most important markets are Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Scandinavia, France and UK. In 2014, 81.5 billion matchsticks were produced and 422.5 million lighters. Sales for matches and lighters was 1,295 MSEK (1,332 MSEK in 2013) and the operating profit declined by 5 percent to 218 MSEK (230 MSEK in 2013).