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The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) published adult-use sales figures for February 2021 last week. In a press release, IDFPR announced that adult-use cannabis retailers in the state generated over $80.7 million in gross revenue in February. February’s sales are down 9.1% from January’s over $88.8 million.
Combined with February’s medical cannabis sales, which we examine below, total retail cannabis revenue in Illinois reached over $110.3 million last month, also down 9.1% from over $121.4 million in combined sales in January.
Sales to out-of-state customers decreased in February but made up a comparable proportion of total sales compared to January. According to IDFPR, residents from states other than Illinois were responsible for 28.3% of sales in February, or over $22.8 million. In January, out-of-state shoppers accounted for 28.2%, or over $25 million, of the total revenue tallied. In February 2020, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, out-of-state sales made up 36% of Illinois’ monthly adult-use revenue total.
Average daily adult-use sales increased month-over-month for the eleventh straight time in February, but growth continues to slow. Mean daily sales figures for the trailing three months are shown in the table below.
Average Daily Adult-Use Sales (Retail) – Trailing 3 Months
The IDFPR’s latest update also includes the number of “items” sold. An item can represent a single product of any type, be it flower, concentrate, or edible.
Items Sold & Average Price per Item (Retail) – Trailing 3 Months
As the table shows, the mean retail price per item was largely stable from January to February.
Reported wholesale flower prices in Illinois’ adult-use market rose in February. From January to February, monthly average rates for flower in the state’s adult-use sector increased by 0.9%. The state’s Spot Index, which includes both medical and adult-use wholesale transactions, declined in the same span by 0.6%.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), which oversees the state’s medical cannabis program, also recently issued an update on patient numbers and sales figures for February. IDPH data shows retail sales of medical cannabis in February totaled over $29.5 million, down by 9.5% compared to January’s revenues of over $32.6 million. February 2021’s retail revenues are up by 19.3% year-over-year, compared to almost $24.8 million in sales recorded in the same month in 2020. The year-over-year growth rate in monthly sales in February is down by almost half compared to that recorded the month prior.
Of February’s sales total, 47.3% – or almost $14 million – went to purchase flower, a proportion up a bit from the month prior, when the percentage was 47.1%. Flower’s proportion of total medical cannabis sales in Illinois trended upward through most of 2020, but leveled off around 48% in the latter months of the year.
As of the end of February 2021, IDPH had approved 153,258 patient applications since the opening of the state’s registry in September 2014, up by about 1,500 from the month prior. 55 dispensaries served 63,564 unique patients in February, down by almost 1,900 unique patients compared to the previous month.
Each patient purchased, on average, 16.7 grams of flower in February, down from 17.8 grams in January. The average retail price of a gram of flower in Illinois’ medical market in February was $13.17, down from January’s mean retail price per gram of $13.24.
On the wholesale side of the market, Illinois cultivation centers recorded over $24.7 million in revenue in February, down by 7.5% from almost $26.7 million in supply side sales documented in January.