Smokeless nicotine products make up the 2nd largest slice of the nicotine category pie.
With Zyn and On! Plus earning marketing approval from the FDA, the category is becoming increasingly important in c-stores.
As cigarette usage continues to decline in the U.S., smokeless tobacco is making its case as the new darling of the backbar.
As of early 2026, The smokeless category includes items like chewing tobacco, snuff and snus. But it’s nicotine pouches that have become an area of particular focus in the c-store industry, with sales in the U.S. expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of almost 25% through 2033, according to research from Grand View Research.
Despite all that growth, however, the smokeless category is still far from the biggest piece of the nicotine business.
Cigarrettes still remain the dominant player in Tobacco sales globally:
While cigarette sales were down 2.4% year over year for the 52 weeks that ended May 30, they still made up almost 70% of overall nicotine category sales, according to NielsenIQ and Goldman Sachs data.
Smokeless products are the second-biggest nicotine category. Cigarettes dominate the category, but continue to log declining sales.
Breaking down the smokeless category:
Three producers make up more than 90% of the smokeless nicotine category — Altria Group, British American Tobacco, and Swedish Match, a division of Philip Morris International.
Nicotine pouches are poised for huge growth, but only two nicotine pouch brands have earned marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The biggest companies in smokeless nicotine.
Altria Group: $4.07 billion
PMI/Swedish Match: $3.79 billion
British American Tobacco: $2.91 billion
Other: $0.8 billion
Sales growth among Swedish Match’s smokeless nicotine brands:
Zyn makes up the largest piece of Swedish Match’s smokeless sales, with almost 90% of the company’s sales in that category, and the brand’s sales grew by a double-digit percentage over the 52 weeks that ended on May 30. Zyn is the largest by far under Swedish Match’s umbrella, and grew sales by almost 13% for the 52 weeks that ended May 30.
Important Note:
In 2025, the use of nicotine pouches among U.S. high school seniors rose to 4.4%, up from 1.4% in 2023, according to the 2025 Monitoring the Future survey. While vaping rates have slightly declined (15.7% for seniors in 2025), many teens are switching to or combining pouches with vapes, with pouches becoming the second most used tobacco product.
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