*The provincial excise taxes vary. Cannabis Benchmarks estimates the population weighted average excise tax for Canada.

**CCSI is inclusive of the estimated Federal & Provincial cannabis excise taxes..

The CCSI was assessed at C$5.87 per gram this week, down 1.6% from last week’s C$5.96 per gram. This week’s price equates to US$2,095 per pound at the current exchange rate.

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This week we employ our updated expectations for nationwide retail expansion, detailed in last week’s report, to recalculate sales revenue projections for 2020 and 2021. We projected that by the end of 2021 Canada will be home to 2,540 physical cannabis stores. This figure would represent an increase of 1,171 licensed shops compared to the end of 2020, but still falls short ofour optimal projected level of 4,638 stores. That being said, the large number of additional new retailers, mainly in Ontario, will add tremendously to Canada’s overall cannabis sales figures.

The latest data from Statistics Canada shows October 2020 sales at C$270M. This new monthly record is up C$13.0M from the month prior and C$140M from the same month last year. This level of sales was achieved with 1,225 stores. If the number of retailers continues to expand at the rate we anticipate, monthly sales will easily cross C$300M early this year.

Below is our monthly Canada-wide cannabis sales projection through the end of 2021. We expect to conclude 2021 with a record monthly sales level of C$345M in December.

Source: Cannabis Benchmarks

All in all, the legal industry is steadily growing and becoming more established. With our new store count projection, we recalculated our complete 2020 and 2021 sales projections. We now expect cumulative 2020 sales totaling C$2.6B and cumulative 2021 sales totaling C$3.8B. The 2021 sales represent a 46% increase from 2020.