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Haypp's nicotine pouch sales jumped 45%. Profit went to zero.

Haypp Group, the largest online nicotine pouch retailer, grew Q2 net sales 28% to SEK 1.18bn as nicotine pouch volume rose 45% and the US and UK each more than doubled. But profit for the quarter came in at SEK 0.0mn as the company poured marketing and personnel spend into growth markets — and launched Saudi Arabia, which it calls the world's second-largest nicotine pouch market.

PouchDaily Desk·

Haypp Group, the Stockholm-listed company that runs the largest online nicotine pouch retail operation in the world, just reported its fastest-growing quarter since going public — and one of its least profitable.

Net sales for Q2 2026 (April-June) rose 28% to SEK 1,176.7 million (SEK 921.5m a year earlier), with organic growth of 27%, according to Haypp's interim report published 12 August 2026. Nicotine pouch volume jumped 45% for the group and now accounts for 71% of everything Haypp sells by volume.

But profit for the quarter landed at SEK 0.0 million, down from SEK 8.6m a year earlier. Earnings per share: zero. The reason is simple: Haypp is spending heavily to win the US and UK, and that spend is now bigger than the profit it generates at home.

What happened

The quarter splits cleanly into two halves. Core Markets (Sweden and Norway) are mature and increasingly profitable. Growth Markets (US, UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland) are growing fast and losing money on purpose.

Metric (Q2 2026, SEK mn) Core Markets Growth Markets Group
Net sales 825.3 (+18%) 351.4 (+57%) 1,176.7 (+28%)
EBITDA 87.9 (+33%) -32.5 (was -5.6) 45.7 (+8%)
EBITDA margin 10.7% (was 9.4%) -9.3% (was -2.5%) 3.9% (was 4.6%)

Core did the heavy lifting on profit: EBITDA up a third to SEK 87.9m, with the margin hitting an all-time high of 10.7%, boosted by Haypp's Media & Insights business (which now contributes nearly 12% of group revenue). Growth Markets more than doubled their loss to SEK -32.5m as marketing and personnel costs in the US and UK scaled ahead of sales.

At the group level the result is a company selling a lot more pouches for almost no profit. Gross margin actually ticked up to 19.5% (the highest on record), and gross profit rose 29% to SEK 229.2m. Every krona of that extra gross profit — and more — went into acquiring US and UK customers.

Why it matters

Haypp is one of the clearest real-time readouts of consumer nicotine pouch demand, because it sells across the US, UK, Nordics and continental Europe online. Three signals stand out.

1. The pouch category is still growing fast — everywhere Haypp sells. Group nicotine pouch volume rose 45%, with Growth Markets up 91% and Core up 20%. Even in Sweden and Norway, where snus is the incumbent, pouches are taking share while traditional snus decline "further moderated." Active consumers across the group jumped 24% to 667,000.

2. The US and UK are the engine. CEO Gavin O'Dowd said Q2 2026 volume in both the US and the UK was up over 100% year-on-year — the second consecutive quarter of triple-digit UK growth, and US momentum that Haypp credits partly to the FDA's May regulatory shift, which it says will bring "materially better new products" to consumers (ZYN Ultra's June launch is the first example). Haypp opened a new automated warehouse north of London in June and its own warehouse in Switzerland, and started a sponsorship with the Professional Darts Corporation to build UK adult-consumer awareness.

3. The growth is not free. Adjusted EBIT fell to SEK 28.6m from SEK 38.3m, and the adjusted EBIT margin roughly halved to 2.4% (from 4.2%). The Growth Markets EBITDA margin worsened to -9.3%. Management says general & administrative costs should "stabilise in absolute terms" through the rest of 2026, with scale benefits expected to feed through into 2027.

Saudi Arabia: the world's second-largest pouch market?

The most forward-looking move in the quarter happened just after it closed. Haypp said it launched in Saudi Arabia in July 2026, describing it as "the world's second largest nicotine pouch market" and one that is "growing quickly within a stable regulatory framework."

That claim is striking — it puts Saudi Arabia behind only the US in Haypp's sizing of the global pouch market. Analyst house Pareto, which covers Haypp, called the Saudi establishment "positive for the long-term growth case" and on 14 August raised its target price to SEK 138 (from SEK 120), keeping a "hold" recommendation. Pareto said the risk/reward "remains neutral until scale benefits can deliver a more attractive development in 2027," and lifted its 2026 sales and adjusted-EBITA forecasts by 1% and 7% respectively.

The analyst read

The Q2 print was a mixed one against expectations. Net sales of SEK 1,176.7m landed almost exactly on Bloomberg consensus (SEK 1,177m). But operating profit badly missed: EBIT of SEK 9.0m versus a consensus around SEK 24m, and EBITDA of SEK 45.7m versus consensus near SEK 54m, per EFN. The miss is the cost of growth — investment, not demand weakness.

The market took the growth signal positively: Haypp shares rose around 4% on the day of the report, per Yahoo Finance. The bull case is that Haypp is buying share in the two markets (US, UK) where pouch demand is accelerating fastest, plus opening a third large market (Saudi Arabia). The bear case is the one Pareto spells out: profit leverage is a 2027 story, not a 2026 one.

What's next

Haypp says it remains "solidly on track" for its 2028 revenue and profit targets. The near-term questions are whether US growth holds as ZYN Ultra and the broader FDA-cleared pipeline arrive, whether the UK warehouse and darts sponsorship convert to durable share, and whether Saudi Arabia moves from launch to scale.

For buyers, the bigger picture is that the online pouch channel is consolidating around volume — and that the company moving the most pouches is currently doing so at break-even.

Compare nicotine pouch prices across retailers at PouchFinder.

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