The majority of cannabis sold in Canada and the United States during the first months of this year was purchased by men, Millennials and Gen Z customers, according to the analytics firm Headset.
Headset released a new report on Thursday outlining cannabis user demographics in the U.S. and Canada. The company’s market intelligence software tracks point-of-sale transactions and offers insight into consumer trends and behaviour.
The data used for the report was derived from several American states such as Nevada, Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Michigan and Arizona along with the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario.
Millennials and Gen Z consumers currently account for about 72 per cent of all sales in those provinces and 63 per cent in the American states analyzed in the report. Headset says Canada has a higher percentage of young cannabis users because the legal age of consumption is 18 or 19 rather than 21 like in the U.S.
Roughly two thirds of all trackable cannabis products sold are purchased by men, says Headset.
Read more: SNDL acquires four Dutch Love stores for $7.8M
Read more: Curaleaf Holdings acquires medical cannabis firm Deseret Wellness for US$20M
Gen Z cannabis users are currently spending more on vape pens than flower
Headset says Gen Z consumers are spending more money on vapor pens than cannabis flower, thereby making them the first ever generation to allocate more of their cannabis funds to a product category other than flower.
Canada had a slightly higher percentage of female consumers than the U.S. between January and February this year, according to the data. Women also spend more money on certain cannabis products than men, and according to Headset, half of the revenue generated from topicals in the first two months of this year came from female consumers.
Graph via Headset
In Canada, total sales attributable to Gen Z consumers increased by 6 per cent between 2022 and 2023 while sales from that demographic in the U.S. increased by 11.3 per cent year-over-year from 15.1 per cent to 16.8 per cent of total sales.
Gen Z consumers also spend 25 per cent more on inhalable cannabis products like concentrates, pre-rolls and vapor pens than Baby Boomers do, the older age groups tend to prefer flower or edibles.
Baby Boomers and Gen X consumers have a greater interest in wellness products such as topicals, tinctures and capsules. In comparison to Gen Z consumers, they spend over 500 per cent more on those categories, accounting for 5.1 per cent of total sales versus 0.9 per cent for those in the Gen Z demographic.
Graph via Headset
Read more: Shoppers Drug Mart hands its medical cannabis business over to Avicanna
Read more: Entourage Health launches new CBD-infused gum
The most substantial difference in spending between Gen Z and Baby Boomer customers is attributable to the vapor pen category. Headset’s data has shown that Gen Z cannabis users spend 191.5 per cent more on vape products than Baby Boomers do.
Baby Boomers also spend about 46 per cent more on edibles than Gen Z consumers do and the edible category is less popular in Canada due to the restrictions that only allow one package of edibles to contain 10 milligrams of THC.
Headset recently partnered with the Interviewing Service of America for improved data collection
Headset team at the Las Vegas Convention Center last year. Photo via Headset
Headset recently partnered with the Interviewing Service of America (ISA) to improve its data analyzing power. ISA will contribute new channels for data collection such as the CANNApinion Poll and The Green Time.
The CANNApinion Poll is an online survey that gathers information on new trends, product preferences and purchasing habits every two months and The Green Time is a community of cannabis researchers that gather feedback from each other about different pot products and services.
The CANNApinion Poll measures the cannabis ecosystem including product preferences, purchasing habits, and lifestyle trends.
Learn more at https://t.co/xKED4rLDNV#marketresearch #dataanalytics #insights #marketanalysis #datacollection #dataanalysis pic.twitter.com/b2rk1G7y0H
— ISA (@ISAcorp_) December 16, 2022
rowan@mugglehead.com
