Not long ago one of our HookahBattle shareholders - Evgeny Fedotov, the founder of "Fedotov Group" - tobacco consulting company, have held the big conference about the Russian nicotine products market.

Please visit Evgeny Fedotov HookahBattle profile and "+" his KARMA.

In this article I would like to share some info and my personal thoughts about the analytics and forecasts of Russian shisha market.

There are 146,4 million of people population in Russia, there are some part of it as adult auditory (18+) and 31% from adult auditory consupt one or another nicotine product:

Alternative tobacco products share compare to cigarettes

30% of the nicotine product market are cigarettes, 19,7% tobacco heating system (ICOS, e.t.c.), 11,5% cigarillos, 10,9% disposable e-cigarettes, 5,3% shisha tobacco, 5,2% e-liquids, 2,2% chewing tobacco

312 000 retail points sell cigarettes

205 000 retail points sell nicotine products and alternative tobacco products (some of them can sell shisha tobacco)

Fedotov Group evaluates the russian audience for shisha tobacco products in 1,6-2 millons of people. In my opinion (based on shisha lounge smokers area) this number should be higher.

My (pretty average) shisha lounge have 12 000 visitors (not unique) per year. There are at least 8000 shisha lounges (or restaurants with shisha) in Russia. 8000 X 12 000 = 96 mln of visits per year ("visit" word is not equal to 1 person, 1 person can visit 1 lounge as a loyal customer like 30 times per year). Im not sure that 96 million shisha lounge visits can be made by shisha auditoty of just 2 mln people.

Shisha tobacco market for 2022: 4600T
Shisha tobacco market for 2023: 4200T (-8,7%)
Share of imported tobacco brands: 3% (!)
Pretty dramatic to see the dynamics (2018-2022) of imported shisha tobacco brands presence in Russia from our another shareholder of HookahBattle Oleg Knyaginin

Extra note from me

Average lounge consupt 150 kilo of shisha tobacco per year, 8000 X 150 kilo = 1200 tons per year. Which means:

28,5% shisha tobacco consuption by lounge smokers (1200T)

71,5% shisha tobacco consuption by home smokers (3000T)

446 professional lounges from Moscow registered on our HookahBattle lounge community platform where2smoke:

Shisha tobacco market value in currency:

2022: 30-35 billions Rub or 402-469 mln Euro (with average euro rate 72,4 for 2022)

2023: 28-32 billions Rub or 304-347 mln Euro (with average euro rate 92,1 for 2023)

42 000 retail points sale shisha tobacco in 2022
55 000 retail points sale shisha tobacco in 2023 (31% gross)
5,3% from all retail tobacco shops have shisha tobacco in their product list

45 000 RUB / 489 euro - average monthly turnover from sales of hookah tobacco of 1 retail shop

170 RUB / 1,8 EURO - avarage retail price for 25gr shisha tobacco package (Most popular retail package)

204 RUB / 2,2 EURO - avarage retail price for 30gr shisha tobacco package

340 RUB / 3,7 EURO - avarage retail price for 50gr shisha tobacco package
680 RUB / 7,4 EURO - avarage retail price for 100gr shisha tobacco package
1700 RUB / 18,5 EURO - avarage retail price for 250gr shisha tobacco package

98 shisha tobacco brands with more than 1500 flavors performed on the russian market for 2023

The most favorite shisha tobacco flavors:
3,2% - Berry mix
3% - pineapple (or mix with pinapple)

2,8% - raspberry
2,7% - "Pinkman" (the flavor from MustHave tobacco - something like Pink Lemonade)
2,3% - Grape or mix with grape
2,1% - Melon with Watermelon
1,9% - Cherry, sweet cherry
1,8% - Kiwi
1,6% - tropical mix
1,6% - Melon or other mix with melon
77% - other flavors

Shisha tobacco categories sorted by shisha masters (shisha packers from lounges):
12% Light tobacco (Adalya, Sebero, Starline)

81% Medium tobacco (Darkside, MustHave, BlackBurn)

7%Heavy tobacco or Cigar tobacco (Deus, Overdose, Satyr)

Average age of hookah tobacco consumer from core auditory in Russia 2023: 25-29 years. Average consumer consupt 444 gr of shisha tobacco per month (5,3 killos per year)*
* - the research been made among the professional consumers (who follow communities and shisha bloggers), Fedotov Group do not reccomend to apply this data for all consumers

3 market players (Darkside, BlackBurn, MustHave) control 78% of the whole market in 2022 and 77% in 2023 (nothing changed)

And finally here's top 10 shisha tobacco brands by sales for 2023:
1. Darkside 856T
2. Musthave 735T
3. BlackBurn 487T
4. Starline (Darkside corp.) 193T
5. Spectrum 83T
6. Adalya 82T
7. Sebero 81T
8. Overdose (BlackBurn) 80T
9. Hooligan 76T
10. Nash 70T

Forecast and trends for 2024 from Fedotov Group:
1. Growth of the HoReCa segment (shisha lounges)
2. Growing range of small brands with unique flavours
3. Growth in sales of inexpensive tobacco
4. Increase in the number of new brands

Notes from me:

I see the trends for growth of Cigar based shisha tobacco in lounge segment

Numbers of Russian shisha tobacco market 2023 (Access for Business Club members only)