Altria 1Q earnings - interesting

[chadizzy1]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...d9bb03050b7484

"Altria sold 1.3 percent less of its smokeless tobacco brands such as Copenhagen and Skoal, and Marlboro Snus — small pouches like teabags that users stick between the cheek and gum. Excluding excise taxes, revenue from its smokeless tobacco business fell slightly to $353 million."

I wonder if that is a sign that people aren't digging their smokeless.

[Monkey]

I didn't buy any of it in the first quarter.

Don't plan to for the rest of the year either....

[Mykislt]

hopefully they'll abandon the disgrace that Marlboro snus is.

[Darwin]

With Altria's smokeless sales volume I doubt that their "snus" is more than one percent of the total--at best. If Marlboro snus sales were zero I'm not sure that would represent that 1.3 percent decline. Even if Marlboro snus sales are completely in the toilet, where they deserve to be, I doubt that would be dragging down sales of other Altria smokeless products 'cuz not that many folks know who the heck Altria is anyway. In any case their earnings were actually up overall so a small blip in their smokeless sales likely concerns them not a bit. And I apologize in advance to all toilets for suggesting Marlboro snus might violate their porcelain integrities.

[chadizzy1]

Quoted!

[c.nash]

Copenhagen is like a god among dips though. :P

[Jwalker]

Yeah you can read the article and think a bit. Volumes of copenhagen went down and the profitability went up, so they raised the price of their intro dip a lot. I'm sure part of it is that the tax on smokeless tobacco has gone up in a lot of places.

[snusjus]

Their smokeless segment is suffering due to discount moist snuff brands, with Grizzly being the single most threat to Copenhagen and Skoal, as it's significantly less expensive and is of similar quality.