The make-up of illicit cigarette market by type (tobacco industry illicit, cheap whites and counterfeit): recently available data at global, European and UK levels
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016* | |
| Global (WCO data) | ||||||||||
| Illicit white | 20% | 25% | NA | NA | NA | |||||
| Counterfeit | 7% | 7% | 4% | 2% | 2% | |||||
| TI illicit | 73% | 69% | NA | NA | NA | |||||
| EU (Project Star and Project Sun) | ||||||||||
| Illicit white | 4% | 8% | 13% | 15% | 23% | 26% | 33% | 37% | 35% | 34% |
| Counterfeit† | 6% | 6% | 5% | 5% | 4% | 0% | 6% | 7% | 9% | 8% |
| TI illicit | 89% | 86% | 82% | 80% | 74% | 74% | 61% | 56% | 56% | 58% |
| UK (Operation Henry 1&2) | ||||||||||
| Illicit whites | 24% | 14% | ||||||||
| Counterfeit | 5% | 18% | ||||||||
| TI illicit‡ | 72% | 69% | ||||||||
Blank cells are where no reports were published. NA indicates where a report was published but a specific data item was not available.
WCO data taken from the WCO Illicit Trade Reports: 2014 and 2015 data from 2015 report211; 2013 data from 2014 report212; 2012 and 2011 data from 2012 report (the first such report)213 (please note figures differ very slightly between reports) (based on seizure data).
EU data taken from the Project Sun and Project Star reports published by KPMG and funded by the tobacco industry and the Royal United Services Institute214–220 (based on industry data and modelling by KPMG).
UK data taken from the Operation Henry reports published by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute and commissioned by the Department of Health Tobacco Policy Team27 221 (based on systematically collected seizure data).
*2016 Operation Henry data were collected from December 2015 to April 2016 inclusive.
†The Counterfeit data in the Project Sun/Star reports comprise just counterfeit PMI brands from 2007 to 2011 and counterfeited brands for all four TTCs from 2013 onward.
‡The 2016 Operation Henry report listed the two most seized products, West and Winston which are tobacco industry brands (sold in the UK by Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International, respectively), as cheap white products. In our analysis, these have instead been included as TI illicits. This is more likely to give an accurate picture because, although it is unclear if a determination was made as to whether these products were genuine or counterfeit, as they are not widely sold in the UK it is thought unlikely that counterfeiters would target them at the UK market.
EU, European Union; PMI, Philip Morris International; TI, tobacco industry; TTCs, transnational tobacco companies; WCO, World Customs Organization.