Cigarette price hike amount revealed

Erol Dündar, President of the Monopoly Dealers Solidarity Association, announced that after the price hikes implemented in July, another increase will be made in August.

Speaking to Egehan Erkün from Tele1, Dündar stated that the hike amount would be around 4-5 Turkish Lira.

Dündar said that the current price increases were not fully reflected due to competition and that the expected hike in July should have been 8-9 TL. However, he noted that the Philip Morris group implementing a lower increase in its price list caused other brands to postpone their hikes.

Stating that monopoly dealer operators are in a difficult situation due to the postponement of the hike, Dündar said, "An average hike of 4-5 TL is coming. It will arrive within the first two weeks of August. The companies have not finished their preparations yet. Normally, there were initial hikes of 8-9 TL; that was the amount that should have been implemented. JTI announced its prices earlier. Marlboro is the leader of the sector, and they announced lower prices just to be difficult. Normally, the first hike was supposed to be at the rate of the SCT (Special Consumption Tax). We were already expecting this hike to come within a month. They will have made us do the work twice. We changed the prices, we will change them again, and we will deal with label updates," he stated.

"CUSTOMERS THINK WE ARE HIDING CIGARETTES"

Stating that stocks have run out because demand increased after the news of the hike, Dündar said, "We are the ones having difficulty in this situation. Companies are imposing restrictions. Naturally, when citizens come, they want to buy more cigarettes, they want to buy by the carton. This time, the goods we have run out. The customer says, 'There are no cigarettes on the shelf.' Well, they are running out. We cannot protect our stock, and we are left facing the customer. The customer thinks we are hiding the cigarettes, but the stock we have is running out because demand has increased. We are calling on companies not to leave small tradesmen facing the customer," he said.