Indonesia's Smoker Profile - Updated Survey Report 2016

One of the health concerns in Indonesia is a habit of a number of people who smoke. Earlier 2016 we had done a survey on Indonesia’s smoker profile and this time we did a second round on the same survey. Please click this link to visit our survey report from early this year.

In total we asked 1003 respondents. Our first question to ask was if they smoked. 208 of them said yes. Therefore we only consider the 208 respondents to be further involved in our survey.

We wanted to know when our respondents started smoking for the first time. In general, 50% of the respondents started at the age range of 18 – 20 years old.

We then asked our respondents for how long they have been smoking. A majority of the respondents, in general, admitted that they have been smoking for longer than 10 years. In detail, the majority of male respondents have been smoking for longer than 10 years. However the majority of female respondents have been smoking for 3-5 years.

The habit of smoking must have started somewhere and for a reason even though it could be a random one. We asked our respondents and received an interesting finding. Our male and female respondents showed a different reason to why they began to smoke for the first time. In other words, we wanted to know what had encouraged them to smoke. 45.95% of the male respondents admitted that they had started smoking because their surrounding friends were also smoking. Meanwhile 34.78% of the female respondents admitted that had started smoking out of curiosity. To us it was an interesting finding. Other reasons include ‘smoking is fun’ to 13.94% of the respondents, and ‘smoking can help release stress’ also to 13.94% of the respondents.

Why did the smoking habit or practice continue? We asked the question to our respondents. The number one reason is addiction to smoking itself, according to 43.27% of our respondents. Other answers include ‘smoking helped to release the stress’, according to 26.44% of the respondents. Other 18.75% of the respondents admitted that they have not yet found a strong reason why they should quit smoking. Lastly, to the other 11.54% of the respondents, the milieu supports their smoking habit or practice.

78.85% of the respondents also admitted that they had tried to quit smoking but then failed.

We then wanted to know for how long our smoking respondents could withstand without smoking a stick of cigarette. For the top answer we split it based on the gender of our respondents. For most of male respondents, they could withstand for less than a day, while the female respondents mostly said one to two days straight. Other answers include one full month (16.83%), 3-6 days (12.98%), one full week (9.13%), 2-3 weeks (3.85%), and longer than one month (1.92%).

Interestingly enough, the number of daily smoked cigarette in sticks varies depending on the gender of our respondents. Most male respondents (40.54%) usually smoke 6-12 sticks in a day while most female respondents (56.52%) smoke 1-5 sticks a day. In general other answers include 13-16 sticks (15.87%), 17-25 sticks (9.62%), and 26-30 sticks (1.44%).

There are at least three types of cigarette namely Sigaret Putih Mesin (SPM), Sigaret Kretek Mesin (SKM), and Sigaret Kretek Tangan (SKT). 35.14% of our respondents admittedly smoke SPM. 25.96% admittedly smoke SKM. Lastly, 9.13% admittedly smoke SKT.

It is now down to where our respondents usually buy their cigarette. ‘Warung’ or a kiosk is the number one place where 75% of the respondents usually buy their cigarette, as opposed to a minimarket (23.08%) and a supermarket (1.44%). The purchased cigarette also comes in packs according to 82.69% of the respondents as opposed to in individual sticks (17.31%). Then, a majority of our respondents (43.27%) smoke their cigarette normally in the evening. Others smoke their cigarette in the afternoon (37.02%) and in the morning (19.71%).

At what moment do the respondents smoke? We found another set of finding that is differed by the gender of the respondents. For 37.84% of male respondents they smoke when they are hanging out with their friends. Other 34.05% of the male respondents smoke when feeling bored. Meanwhile the other 20% smokes after having a meal.

Our female respondents showed a slightly different habit of smoking as to at what moment they smoke. A majority of female respondents (47.83%) smoke their cigarette when feeling bored. 26.09% smoke their cigarette when hanging out with their friends. And, 17.39% of the female respondents smoke when they feel stressed out.

Lastly, we are finishing this survey report by showing two facts about a failed campaign. 72.12% of the respondents admitted that the warning that says “SMOKING CAN KILL YOU” on the cigarette package does nothing to discourage them to stop smoking. The same goes for 62.98% of respondents who admitted that the scary health caution image found on cigarette packages also does nothing to discourage the respondents to stop smoking. Perhaps we can conclude that the campaign does not affect most of existing smokers to stop smoking.

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below (Bahasa Indonesia). JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographic segment preference on each answer.