Statistics Canada released the results of a new retail commodity survey for Q2, showing promising numbers for the cannabis industry.
While total retail commodities are down approximately 15% from the second quarter of 2019, the cannabis retail trade increased 55.4%, from $252.2 million in Q2 2019 to $565.8 million in the same quarter this year.
In the second quarter of 2019, cannabis only represented 0.16% of all retail commodities in Canada, however, a year later, it now accounts for 0.41% of the total.
That’s because Canadians are spending more on legal cannabis.
According to more recently released data from Statistics Canada, Canadians spent 49.5% more on cannabis this year than in Q2 of 2019. Household consumption expenditure of cannabis totalled $648 million in the second quarter of this year, compared to only $327 million during the same time in 2019. Out of a total of $275.1 billion in household expenditures, 0.23% was spent on licenced, non-medical cannabis.
Unlicenced cannabis sales continue to drop, but likely not as quickly as regulators would prefer. Illicit sales still make up 54.7% of non-medical cannabis sales, however, that’s an 18.4% decrease over last year.
Including medical, licenced, and unlicenced sales, Canadians spent a grand total of $1.58 billion on cannabis in Q2 2020, 6% more than last year, for a total of $3.12 billion in the first half of this year.