Interview With Markus Lindblad at Haypp Group
Last year, two tobacco businesses – Snusbolaget and Northerner – merged to form one large tobacco company: The Haypp Group. The Northerner is the largest online store of smokeless tobacco products worldwide and has a lot of American customers. Snusbolaget is based in Sweden and sells snus and smokeless tobacco products online – especially to the Scandinavian market. Together, the new Haypp Group now boasts more than 500 000 customers in over 30 countries. Since joining forces, the Haypp Group’s sales of tobacco-free nicotine products have continued to increase. Not only has the company been expanding its base within the USA and Scandinavia but seems to be taking the rest of Europe by storm as well.
The Haypp Group’s future objectives
One of the reasons for the merger was to create a larger market base of smokeless tobacco products. Tobacco-free nicotine pouches, for example Zyn pouches, have become increasingly popular in the States, which has seen a rapid 250 percent increase in sales within the last six months. One of the current market leaders is a company called Nicokick, which falls under the auspices of the Haypp Group. The Haypp Group’s Head of External Affairs, Markus Lindblad, states that this growth shows no signs of stopping, and they expect to become the go-to US supplier of nicotine smokeless products in the near future. Not only will this entail healthier nicotine consumption behavior, but more American jobs will become available in order to keep up with the increasing demand.
In fact, Nicokick sold approximately 80,000 cans of nicotine pouches per month in 2019, and Markus Lindblad confirms that the Haypp Group hopes to increase this to one million cans per month by 2024. Although this seems like a large number, the company should have no trouble reaching this goal if their current trajectory continues at the same pace.
How to achieve those objectives?
According to Markus Lindblad, the main way to successfully increase sales is to listen to the consumer. He has been quoted as saying, “the closer we become with our customers, the more we will understand their needs across different markets and customer segments. Only then can we be on the customers’ side and create proper change.” Thus, by truly heeding customers’ demands, the Haypp Group hopes to include them in transforming the tobacco industry into a more non-combustible market.
Tobacco-free nicotine products are definitely making waves in the industry, and it will be interesting to see how this market develops in the coming years – hopefully the Haypp Group will reach that one million monthly user mark by 2024.