Sales of cigarettes in South Korea inched down in 2023 for the first time in four years, but demand for electronic cigarettes logged a marked growth, the Finance Ministry said.

South Koreans purchased 3.61 billion 20-cigarette packs last year, down 0.6 percent from the previous year’s 3.63 billion packs, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

It was the first on-year fall since 2019, when sales lost 0.7 percent on-year.

But sales of duty-free cigarettes surged 60.7 percent on-year to 140 million packs in 2023 in line with the growth in the number of tourists after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taken all together, tobacco sales went up 0.8 percent to 3.74 billion packs in 2023, the second consecutive year of growth, the ministry said. (Yonhap)