SEOUL, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Cigarette sales in South Korea fell in the first half on higher prices and the government-led anti-smoking campaign, government data showed Tuesday.
The total number of cigarettes sold, including electronic cigarettes, came to 1.68 billion in the January-June period, down 1.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.
The lower sale came as the government raised the price of cigarettes by a whopping 80 percent from January 2015.
In 2016, the government required tobacco companies to put graphic health warnings on the upper part of cigarette packs on both sides as part of anti-smoking campaign.
Smokers chose to smoke electronic cigarettes, which accounted for 9.3 percent of the total cigarette sales, or 156 million 20-cigarette packs.
The portion of electronic cigarettes jumped from 4.2 percent tallied in the second half of last year.
Cigarette sales, excluding the electronic one, was 1.53 billion packs in the first half, down 10.6 percent from a year earlier.
