Who's Buying All That Weed? Headset Has The Details

Headset, the leading provider of data and analytics to the cannabis industry, recently released its data on cannabis consumer trends and demographics for 2021 within the US and Canada. 

As new markets enter into the industry, brands emerge and consolidate and as other global factors influence supply and demand within the industry, one often wonders: who's buying all this weed?

Headset lays it out. Let’s have a look:

Trends seen across California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada and Washington cannabis markets in the U.S. and Alberta and Ontario in Canada include:

• Sales from female consumers in the US have increased 55%, while sales from male consumers have increased 49%.
• Gen Z consumers are quickly aging into the market, with US market share to this age group more than doubling over the last two years, from 8.3% to 15%.
• Vapor Pen wallet share decreases with customer age, while Edible wallet share increases with customer age. Meanwhile, Pre-Roll wallet share is remarkably constant across age groups, indicating that the convenience and familiarity of a pre-rolled joint has universal appeal.
• Both Gen Z and Millennial females logged much higher sales shares in Canada last quarter than their American counterparts. In fact, female customers overall contributed 36.7% of total sales in Canada while in America that value was only 32.6%.

Those are the trends and here are the products. When exploring product categories, Headset found that certain categories have been more successful than others in the US and Canada.

Key takeaways: 

In the US, Beverages and Pre-Rolls saw the strongest year over year growth rates in 2021, while the Tincture & Sublingual category saw a decline in sales. On the other hand, Tincture & Sublingual products in Canada, which were released in late 2020 with other ‘Cannabis 2.0’ products, saw over 3000% growth year over year.

Flower market share is in decline in both the US and Canada. This is likely caused by a steady decrease in customer participation in the category, rather than a decreased spend among customers who prefer flower.

The Beverage category is one of few product categories that saw positive market share growth in both the US and Canada between 2020 and 2021. This was driven by an increase in basket penetration over time.

While there are many emerging trends within the cannabis industry, Headset makes clear, THCV products may be one to watch.

Photo by JRod at Benzinga