Right now, few industries offer greater long-term growth potential than the legal marijuana industry. On Wall Street, peak sales projections for the cannabis industry have come in as high as $166 billion. The analyst behind this lofty forecast, Bank of America’s Christopher Carey, also suggests that marijuana could disrupt industries that today combine for $2.6 trillion in annual sales.
It’s these estimates for rapid sales growth that have pushed cannabis stock valuation (at times) into the stratosphere. With tens of billions of dollars’ worth being sold annually in the black market, worldwide weed legalizations could easily move a majority of these sales to legal channels in the years to come. If that’s the case, even the loftiest sales projections from Wall Street over the next 5 or 10 years may be attainable…
Global legal cannabis sales growth to average 24% through 2024, report shows
Wall Street’s sales projections rarely provide much insight on how they arrive at their lofty future sales figures. But that’s not the case with the 350-plus-page “State of the Legal Cannabis Markets” report released on Thursday, June 20, by the duo of Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics. The new report details every nook, cranny, and bud, or where growth will be sprouting through 2024 in the legal cannabis industry.
The headline figure that I’m sure everyone wants to know is what total worldwide sales will look like by the time 2024 rolls around. According to actual legal pot sales figures from Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics between 2014 and 2018 and estimates between 2019 and 2024, here’s how things shake out:
- 2014: $3.4 billion
- 2015: $4.8 billion
- 2016: $6.7 billion
- 2017: $9.1 billion
- 2018: $10.9 billion
- 2019: $14.9 billion
- 2020: $19.3 billion
- 2021: $24.4 billion
- 2022: $30.7 billion
- 2023: $36.2 billion
- 2024: $40.6 billion
For those of you keeping score at home, this works out to a compound annual growth rate of 28.2% over a decade and 24.5% over the six-year period between the end of 2018 and the end of 2024.
North America is the key to the marijuana industry’s skyrocketing sales forecast
You’ll note that growth tapered off significantly in 2018 as regulatory issues and supply chain problems wreaked havoc in California, as well as in Canada in the early stages of its recreational legalization process. However, based on the report’s forecast, many of these supply issues will resolve themselves shortly, leading to a rapid rise in legal sales.
Arcview and BDS Analytics also offer year-by-year breakdowns of global medical and recreational sales. After adult-use revenue hit $6.1 billion in 2018, to go along with $4.8 billion in medical marijuana sales, the duo will be looking for recreational revenue to expand to…
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