Canada sold €120 million worth of cannabis in May

Canadian cannabis sales totaled 185.9 million $CA (€120 million) for the month of May, reported Tuesday Statistics Canada, This trend would bring the annual cannabis market to 2.2 billion $CA.

These figures represent growth of 4.2% from April to May this year, after a very slight drop from March to April, from 180.1 million $CA to 178.4 million $CA.

«We view this performance as resilient and robust as store closures persisted in May, which dampened sales,» said commented Andrew Carter and Christopher Growe, analysts at Stifel, who estimate that the Canadian market will exceed 2.4 billion $CA in 2020.

The May figures also reveal that a quarter of all sales took place in Alberta, revealing an imbalance between retail outlets across the country. Alberta, Canada's fourth largest province, has around 500 licensed cannabis dispensaries and accounts for almost 25% of cannabis sales in Canada, or around 46.3 million $CA s in April. To date, the province leads the entire country in cannabis sales.

Cannabis sales in Canada

Other provinces such as Ontario and Quebec still have few points of sale. However, Ontario also saw an increase in sales in May, up 2.2% to 4.1 million $CA.

Quebec, meanwhile, saw sales fall by 6.1% to 38.5 million $CA, a decline attributed to «a certain sell-off of inventory, as sales remained robust during the first two months of SQDC store closures, as well as significant price compression on dried flowers». Sales may also have been limited by Quebec's ban on edible products, popular in other provinces.

With the exception of New Brunswick, sales in other provinces increased during this period.