in time to come ,bat will roll out on line purchase nationwide,i think south thailand is not the smuggling route for cigarettes as most counter brands are manufactured in vietnam,if they dont do it now ,they will suffer if another price increase and E cigarettes will come in a big way in a month's time,ten years ago ,price for a Daihatsu cigarette van costing rm 40,000. plus ,now rm 70,000 plus,ten years ago ,a cigarette van sales starting pay was about rm1500,now still paying the same,matter of time u cant get manpower,so market strategies have to be changed to adapt to the enviroment,pay third party for delivery service to save up cost,if not we all know what is the end result.

i would like to inform all share holders that BAT is going for on line purchase with effective today in upper North,namely ,penang ,kedah and perlis,BAT is using upper north as a trial run and set up an apps for all customers to place an order and will be delivered by third party [some thing like shopee service] all distributors had been terminated in upper north,this is popular in the west as drop in sales and rise in overhead will eventually eat into their profit,judge by yourself buy more or trim your holdings

i wish to inform all investors cigarette industry is a sunset industry, the market total volume has dropped more than 2/3 as compared 10yrs ago.BAT is of no exception,10 yrs ago BAT market share was 63% ,now is only about 53%,as it is the market leader ,it still can afford to pay good dividend as compare to Bank interest ,for ur information, there is a multinational cigarette going for retrenchment& demarketing exercise end of next month it is doing away with half of it's sales executives [70 +] ,merging it's distributors into only 2 in the country,& cutting down the van salesman of the distributors in large numbers to safe cost ,i hope all investors will not over commit yourselves in this counter, can hold for short term, no prospect at all in long term as fast consumer product once it drops, there's no looking back ,wish u all good luck

stockraider, it is sad to say that [to you only]i have been conned by investing in Jaks & taking up DK 66 advice to hold it till today, two months ago i was still losing six figures in Jaks investment, but today i am richer by six figures with Jaks alone ,in future if u come across any counter u think that is a conned counter like Jaks ,please post it in I3,i will invest heavily in it ,as we all understand that u r a lousy investor getting jealous & uncomfortable seeing people making stunning returns from their investment.

as far as i know 40 yrs ago ,BAT holding company was Chelwood of UK
,holding more than 50% of the market share
,i don't think they will take the company private as the company is not as bright as before & the future is bleak, volume has contracted by 60-70 %, in the case of Japan Tobacco International [formally RJR] Japanese bought over as they needed it to expand their own brand Mild Seven now renamed Melvis ,if still owned by the Americans ,will they put millions in to promote the brand not own by them ,anyway good luck to those having BAT,but i still suggest don't hold long term.

pricing & illicit cigarettes are the 2 main factors contribute to the down fall of the industries, it will capture back some market share but won't be a double digit growth ,sales will grow within the CMCO period as most of the illicit cigarettes can't be delivered to the selling points because of road block ,this is one of the reasons why 2nd Q was good ,if u meet the cigarette salesman in the coffee shop, just ask them sales during cmco as compare to normal days? they will give u the same answer as i did.

KYO $11.5 ,ANOTHER BRAND $10.90 launched by phillip morris few weeks ago also cannot sell ,Kyo doing promotions in selected outlets ,buy one free one can get some support ,cigarettes costing double digit sure cannot sell in rural areas where 60-70% of the sales come from ,KYO IN OUTLETS NOT DOING PROMOTIONS ,a great disappointment as well,u all have to bear in mind,even $12 is not within the reach of the people in the street,BAT is a very good manage company,but the future is not there i was with 2 cigarette companies for 50 yrs ,i am not discouraging any one not to buy,they will be very happy if they can maintain their present volume as compare to last year.my advice is short term ,long term u will regret.

kyo selling at $11.50-$8.00 {exercise duty]-$.80 [retailer profit] -$.20 [Distributor profit] Balance is $2.50, manufacturing cost of the cigarettes[tobacco leaves ,packing, cigarette filters etc] then transportation , insurance ,storage ,selling expenses ,administration cost ,leaving a very marginal profit ,this is for market share only & i am not sure sales tax got to pay or not? look at Dunhill $17.40-$8.00-$1.1-$.30= $8.00 ,the rest of the costing are the same as KYO except the tobacco leaves are of higher grade ,if higher turn over comes from KYO, only siok sendiri ,volume must come from Dunhill or other premium Brands ,other wise u can't see profit coming in ,but at$17.40,do u think sales can go up ,may be yes, if government can reduce the taxes , so i advise u guys to invest wisely ,gone were the glory days, no.1 stumbling block is pricing ,
if price of premium brand is$10.00 now ,value for money brand is $5.00,i can assure u illicit cigarettes will be almost extinct in the market leaving only the Duty not paid in the market.

BAT was formed in the the 90's with the merging of malaysian tobacco company (marketing Benson & Hedges ,Lucky strike,555 etc,i was with this company then)& Cigarettes Importers & exporters (marketing Dunhill ,Rothmans, Peter,Perilly"s ),Internationaly BAT bought over Rothmans of Pall MAll London & merge worldwide businesses into one, they were here for about a century already.

there are few factors which lead to the fall of this industry 1)the pricing is out of the reach of the men in the street. 2)sponsorship is banned especially football which BAT Dunhill was the main sponsor for all live football matches all over the world ,even M League was sponsored by Dunhill, as the fans said no Dunhill ,no football as other products do not have the financial resources to sponsor solely. 3)the banned of advertisement in the TV, still remember Dunhill ad .image projecting ,sports car ,watches ,beautiful clothings ,with a young dynamic handsome model with the conclusion remarks ,this is style ,rich ,famous, this is Dunhill ,all new smokers were Dunhill smokers then .now gone were the days ,smoking no more can bring you a dynamic image ,in fact a unhealthy life style ,so u can judge by yourself ,look AROUND YOUR FAMILY &Friends ,how many smokers are there ,not surprising is a sunset industry.

if it is not a sunset industry ,E cigarettes will not be introduced in this country ,sales was dropping like a rocket,& they don't fell the bottom yet, those can't survive have to make a gamble with new products to survive ,why don't they launch in Indonesia or Vietnam in which market are several times bigger then malaysia,because all of them are enjoying bumper harvest returns there ,why want to introduce new products to dilute the market,as the chinese saying, extra people extra ghost.my advise is trade short term long term price will go down,all companies are going for transformation,in other words they will reduce the no. of service to the retailers,usually high volume outlets to service twice a week, will cut to once a wk,those service once a wk, may go fortnightly resulting shortage of stock in the market as dealings are in cash,remember they are 3 BIG CIGARETTES companies in the country,20 cartons purchase will cost $3000. so less service, less sales, given illicit cigarettes a chance to grow fast especially in rural areas where service by the 3 companies is not effective at all .

if even illicit cigarettes is down by 30%, the legal market will not go up by even5 %,this is just because people in the street just can't afford a packet of more than $10.they may give up smoking ,or reduced the no.of sticks they smoke each day,i was in this line for a number of years,it did happen when illicit cigarette was out of stock,but my sales just went up a bit & was only restricted to the cheap brand,those premium brand Dunill, marlboro ,melvis just remained stagnant,so don't have high hope on this.

Danielgsk ,my previous postings page 161. 7-8-20 then u have a thorough understanding of the cigarette industries

Danielgsk---i posted a few articles about the cigarettes business in the country a few months back, it seems that no body is paying attention to it,I am responding to ur Questions about Q4 2019 compare to Q1 2020,the big gap in PAT,usually all cigarettes companies ,namely BAT,Japan Tobacco international & Phillips Morris [Marlboro},as the market is contracting too fast due to pricing,less smokers,illegal cigarettes,infact legal market has dropped by more than 60% by volume compare with 10 years ago,for example ten yrs ago ,total market was 10 billion sticks a year,now only 4 billions sticks left,perhaps turn over[value] was not much different,but 10 years ago ,a packet was selling at$4.5,but now is $17.5,now all cigarettes company will give discount to the trade during the last 2weeks of every quater to push the sales up,usually $5 discount for every cartoon purchased,for these 2 weeks ,sales could go up by 50-80% [cigarettes sales is counted by week,week 1 to week 52 in a yr]but the discount can't benefit the smokers only the retailers,in fact is only the retailers stockings up the stocks for them & have to pay back the following Quater,this is why they have to repeat discount selling at every end of the Q to keep the sales steady,for your question,Q4 2019,push hard in the market during last 2 wks of the Q as is year end,if not up to target, will give higher discount to achieve to close the year more handsome looking,so Q4 2019,free selling,Q1 2020,lock down on 18.3.20 no sales no discount at all,so why so big different between Q4 2019/ Q12020 ,this is a sunset industry,only for short term ,long term sure die,$8 is not surprise within 2 yrs

300 cases in yr 2006 could turned revenue into $1m a wk as per case was $3500 then.if volume wont drop it would be 300cases x$8000 as of today's per case value, then revenue would be 2.4 million,but only could get 900,000.00.lost in revenue would be 2.4million- 900,000.=1.5million ,more than 60% lost in revenue,remember this happened in a secondary town in the country & is just for one week sales,there are 52 wks a year,i will not hold long term for this counter,short term hit & run is ok

i am giving all of u a very clear picture of the cigarette industries in the country,cigarettes are counted in stick
&not revenue if u want to compare it's sales with the last Q,one packet is 20 sticks,one carton is 200 sticks,one case is 10mille,1oo cases is 1 million stick,this is how we calculate our sales ,in yr 2005-6,that was the prime time of the cigarette industries,a premium packet was selling at $4+,then price increased &to $5.5,that was the time sales not moving fast forward,i was in charged of an area with weekly revenue of $1 million with total cigarette volume of 300 cases about 3 million stick per week,by the time i left 3 yrs ago,total volume dropped to 130 cases ,about 1.3 million stick but revenue just dropped slightly to about 900000.00,Bat 2011 quaterly revenue
about 1 billion,price per packet around $7,Q2 ,2020,revenue 546 million with $17 per packet,u calculate how much the total volume has retreated,usually all cigarettes companies will do discount {forward} sales during the last 2 wks of every Q,to push sales up,but 1st Q due to MOC
not doing 2nd Q doing thats why sales better,so friends ,go into it,wish all investors good luck

the hardest hit time was from 2010-2014,a packet of premium shot up from $7 to $17 within a space of 4 yrs,& within these 4 years till i left ,volume dropped by half and turn over also only could just maintain,if volume could maintain,turnover should be 150% more,i am just giving a clearer picture of the market situation now,these are our hard earn money,take care all investors.

@DK66 pls add me to the group thanks.