Retail sales in Canada increased 4.3% in January to $154.21 million according to Statistics Canada.
Ontario continued to lead sales with a 10% increase to $37.06 million, which represents 24% of Canadian sales, even though Ontario has 38.8% of Canada’s population. As the number of stores in Ontario increase, we will undoubtedly see sales be more reflective of the total population. As of January 31st, Ontario only had 28 stores open, whereas by March 31st that number had increased to 51 and new stores are opening each month.
Alberta showed the second highest sales at $33.32 million, which represents 21.6% of Canadian sales, although only 11.7% of Canadians live in that province. That high percent of sales is reflective of the 411 legal cannabis stores that were open in January–the highest number in Canada. Alberta’s sales rose 2.8% over December’s sales.
Quebec came in third place with sales of $32 million showing a 4.6% decrease in sales from the previous month, despite two more stores opening in January bringing their total to 35 government-run stores. Quebec’s sales are 20.8% of national sales and 22.5% of Canadians reside there, so Quebec’s sales are more in line with its number of residents.
BC’s sales recovered in January with an 11.3% increase over December, which was only a 4% increase over November’s sales. January’s sales were $19.78 million, which represents 12.8% of Canadian cannabis sales, for a province with 13.5% of Canada’s population. Store numbers in BC are slowly creeping up with 183 stores open in January, but there are still over 500 applications awaiting approval.
In the Prairies, Saskatchewan saw a large leap of 25.8% to $9.58 million whereas Manitoba’s sales decreased 7.7% to $6.6 million.
In the east, sales in Newfoundland and Labrador and PEI both declined at the beginning of the year, yet Nova Scotia and New Brunswick increased.
January Sales x 1,000
Canada $154,213
Ontario $ 37,061
Alberta $ 33,323
Quebec $ 31,998
BC $ 19,782
Saskatchewan $ 9,583
Manitoba $ 6,598
Nova Scotia $ 6,342
New Brunswick $ 4,350
Nfld & Lab $ 3,034
PEI $ 1,405
Yukon $ 537
NWT $ 199