Oettinger Davidoff AG, the world leading premium cigar
business, expanded its strong global market position in 2015 in an environment
that continues to be “very challenging”.
Total sales in the 2015 financial year declined by 8.2% to
CHF1.126bn due to falling demand in Europe and China, the effects of the strong
Swiss franc and the slightly lower sales in the cigarette and general agency
business. But the company again succeeded in gaining market share worldwide
thanks to the growing North American and Asian markets and some significant
improvements in core brand sales.
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| Confident: Oettinger Davidoff CEO Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard |
Double-digit growth for core brands
Against the backdrop of a declining market, both core
brands, Davidoff and Camacho, reported double-digit growth of 10.5% and 34.4%,
respectively. In addition, Oettinger Davidoff achieved a production record for
the third consecutive time: it produced a grand total of 45.8m cigars, up 4.1%.
Commenting on the business performance last year, CEO
Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard said: “In the financial year gone by, Oettinger
Davidoff has made great progress, both strategically and with regard to the
development of the core brands and market shares. This is all the more
gratifying since we were obliged to campaign simultaneously on a number of
fronts, such as the exchange rate situation, the anti-corruption law in China
and the economic trend in Russia, as well as further international tightening
of anti-tobacco regulations.”
The most important contributors to this positive development
were innovations and new product launches in the Davidoff and Camacho core
brands as well as the relaunched AVO line. The new Davidoff lines Winston
Churchill, Escurio and Nicaragua now account for around a third of all Davidoff
cigar sales. This development reflects not only a trend towards somewhat more
intense flavours, but also the preferences of a younger generation of cigar
smokers. Whereas demand fell in the European cigar market, it increased in Asia
and the US. In the US, Oettinger Davidoff outperformed the market growth of 2%
many times over with an increase of 15%.
Expansion of the Davidoff Art Initiative
With the Davidoff Art Initiative, established four years
ago, the company is supporting contemporary art and artists in the Caribbean.
At the heart of the initiative is the endeavour to promote and support the
development of the cultural community of the Dominican Republic, where a large
part of the production is located and many of the company’s employees live. The
Art Residency Programme forms the cornerstone of the initiative, which aims to
foster the creative exchange between artists in the Caribbean, in particular
the Dominican Republic, and the rest of the world and to help develop their
talents and experiences by enabling them to spend time in other cultural areas.
After the opening of a dedicated residency in the Dominican
Republic, the first Caribbean artist was welcomed to Switzerland as part of the
new collaboration with the Atelier Mondial Art Residency in Basel in October 2015.
The fifth and, for the time being, final cooperation will enable a fifth
Caribbean artist to take up a three-month residency this year in Bogota,
Colombia. Three cooperations are already under way with residencies in New
York, Beijing and Berlin. The company has also commissioned the French-Jamaican
video artist Olivia McGilchrist to create the second Davidoff Limited Art
Edition within this initiative. Part of the proceeds are being poured back into
this funding project.
Facing the future with confidence
“Thanks to our strongly anchored core brands and the many
product innovations that we will also be launching this year, we are confident
of winning further market shares,” said Hoejsgaard. In order to secure future
growth, further investment is also planned in building and developing the
Davidoff flagship stores in city centres as well as duty-free locations.
