▶ KT&G Overseas Sales (graph)

According to the company’s 2016 business result announcement, KT&G sold 48.7 billion cigarettes last year in overseas markets, up 4.7 percent from the previous year. The company set sales record for two years in a row by posting $812.08 million in sales last year.

KT&G’s success in overseas is attributed to its efforts to explore new markets including Asia, Africa and Latin America beyond its major markets including the Middle East and Russia. Customized butt taste according to different consumer propensity in each market also helped, it said.

KT&G began exports in 1988 and have been penetrating overseas market via high quality products and frontier spirit. The company built overseas plants in Turkey in 2008, twenty years from its first export, and later in Iran and Russia. It acquired a tobacco firm in Indonesia in 2011 to expand in the Southeast Asian market.

Last year, the company reshuffled its organization to CIC (Company In Company) system in which finance and HR divisions are run independently. In addition, it expanded and moved its U.S. operation to Dallas.

Esse, its super-slim cigarette, accounted for over a half of the company’s exports. It commands more than a third of the world’s super-slim cigarette markets. The company aims to develop its Raison and Bohem cigarettes as hot as Esse.

A KT&G official said, “During the last 30 years, KT&G grew up to become a global tobacco producer which sells its products across 50 countries. We will keep growing exports by active investment and various product development.”