The Hindu Business Line : Davidoff-Godfrey Philips venture bullish on India

Bangalore April 5 "If you are in a hurry, don't smoke a cigar. Take your time to smoke a cigar," says Dr Reto Cina, President and Chief Executive Officer of cigar company Davidoff, which has tied up with Godfrey Philips to launch its brand in India.

The costliest Davidoff cigar is priced at Rs 1,400 and the cheapest is at Rs 50. In India, the cigar market is growing at 30 per cent - 35 per cent. In volume terms it is around two million and in value terms around Rs 10 crore. "We expect the market to grow to around Rs 100 crore in five years," says Godfrey Philips International (GPI) Chief Executive Officer Mr Amrish R. Anand.

Last year, Davidoff sold about 30 million hand rolled cigars in the world and with a market share of around 30 per cent, it is the single largest selling brand globally. But when Davidoff started making hand rolled cigars, the rejection rate was as high as 48 per cent. It has now come down to 1.5 per cent. According to Dr Cina, making hand rolled cigars is similar to wine making. Most of Davidoff cigars are made in the Dominican Republic where the company has its own plantation and two factories. A third factory is expected to be commissioned soon, which will take the production to 42 million cigars from 30 million at present. Like wine, each and every step towards making a fine quality cigar takes time and patience. For starters, when the tobacco plant is fully grown, it is covered with a cheese cloth so that a temperature of about 24 per cent is maintained, which is ideal for tobacco used for making cigars. Cigar is made from a blend of different varieties of tobacco, which gives it a unique aroma. To maintain the same aroma in every single cigar, Davidoff keeps stocking the same varieties of tobacco for as long as four years. Rolling of cigars is considered an art and usually a pair of them work together to make one cigar. It takes nearly an hour to roll between eight and 12 cigars of different sizes.

According to Dr Cina, different sizes of cigars carry different aromas but Cigarillo, a brand from Davidoff, is gaining popularity because it consumes far less time to smoke than the rest. "People don't have much time as before and hence prefer those which consumes less time," says Dr Cina. Of course, having the best brand is not good enough, even the match stick to light the cigar should be right. The match stick used for the purpose of lighting cigars has to be long and without sulphur so that the aroma is maintained right from the first puff.

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