High Tide shares climbed after the cannabis retailer reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter results, supported by revenue growth and a significant reduction in losses.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Raj Grover, CEO at High Tide, about the company’s loyalty-driven strategy, competitive positioning in Canada and expansion opportunities in Europe and the United States.
Key Takeaways
- Revenue growth of 25 per cent was driven largely by customer loyalty programs and price-focused retail strategies.
- Losses narrowed significantly year-over-year, reflecting improved operating performance and scale.
- Canadian cannabis market growth is slowing, but value-focused retailers may continue to outperform peers.
- Industry consolidation could accelerate as weaker competitors exit, creating share gains for larger players.
- International markets, particularly Germany and the U.K., are emerging as major long-term growth opportunities.
Read the full transcript below:
ROGER: Shares of High Tide were up after the Canadian cannabis company reported a revenue beat in its first quarter, sharply narrowing its losses from last year. For more on this, I’m joined by Raj Grover, CEO of High Tide. Raj, thanks very much for joining us.
RAJ: Great to be here with you, Roger.
ROGER: All right. Yeah, you’re up. You’ve given up a little bit right now, but we won’t talk about that. Your revenue, though, is up 25 per cent over the last year. What is driving that?
RAJ: Well, we’ve always been very keen on operational outperformance. High Tide has been a leader in the cannabis retail market here through our Canada brand for a very long time. We are the highest revenue-generating cannabis company in Canada. We have been over the last three, four years. The main reason, Roger, for this outperformance is our Cabana Club. We have the largest cannabis loyalty program in all of cannabis. Our Cabana Club members now exceed 2.58 million members, almost 2.6 million members. And our paid membership tier, Elite, is growing even faster. It’s growing at 100 per cent year-over-year, and now we have 162,000 Elite members that pay us $35 to shop in our stores. We offer the lowest price guarantee in the country, and a lot of cannabis customers are price-sensitive, and we are reaping the benefits of this move.
ROGER: And now you mentioned on your earnings call that Canada is slowing down overall, and possibly for you as well. Do you have concerns about that? Where do you see growth coming from in Canada?
RAJ: Look, Roger, we’ve grown a lot. So over the last four years, our same-store sales are up 149 per cent, while in the same time period, the average operator in the country has declined or has experienced flat sales. So yes, sales have slowed down a little bit over the last quarter, and Q2 is generally our slowest quarter. But this can be attributed to less amount of dollars in consumers’ wallets. But again, because we are the lowest price guarantee in the country, we are the most appealing concept to cannabis customers. So we feel that even when there is an impact of the overall industry slowing down, we’re going to feel that impact a lot less. As an example, over the last 12 months ending December, total industry sales went up just three per cent and Canada was up 14 per cent.
ROGER: So do you see opportunities in this? Do you see mergers and acquisitions, or just other competitors not being able to stay in?
RAJ: Well, absolutely. Look, as we are the largest cannabis retailer in Canada, with 220 current locations, and we just reiterated our long-term goal to exceed 350 locations across Canada. And to your point, when industry sales slow down, other operators, like I mentioned, are going to experience more pain, and what this results in is many of them are going to choose to leave the race, and at that point, some of these dollars will come back to us disproportionately.
ROGER: And are you not worried about having too many stores? I mean, where I live, I think there are four different cannabis shops within a half block of each other.
RAJ: Yeah, you’re absolutely right, and this is why our real estate strategy is totally differentiated. We don’t typically fight on city blocks. In a province like Ontario, which is the largest in the country, you have cannabis stores across from each other, like you mentioned, four on major city blocks. We choose to go with an anchored real estate strategy. So we choose power centres, which are anchored by Costco, LCBO, Home Depot, Walmart, and when you go to these plazas, you find a Canna Cabana next to it offering the lowest price guarantee. So we are not experiencing the same mayhem that others are experiencing. And we remain very bullish on our strategy. We’re at a 12 per cent market share in the country, which is up from 11 per cent the year before and 10 per cent two years before. Our long-term target is to get to 15 per cent market share, but I think we go past that, Roger.
ROGER: All right. And looking at Europe, what’s the latest in Germany and the U.K.?
RAJ: Well, I couldn’t be more happy with our advancement in Remexian. So just as a reminder to our listeners, we just purchased Remexian in September of 2025. In Q4, our average monthly revenue was $5 million. In Q1, that average monthly revenue went up to $8 million. In February alone, we’ve just done $12 million, so you can see how that business is going. And we remain very bullish on the German opportunity. The German market is now annualizing over 227 tonnes in medical cannabis, up from 75 tonnes the year before. So you can see the massive growth there. And then adjacent markets to Germany, like the U.K., are very interesting and are growing at 100 per cent year-over-year. It grew at 100 per cent last year. It’s projected to grow between 60 to 200 per cent this year, and we’re already in conversations with players to see how we can enter that market.
ROGER: And do you see legalization coming in those areas?
RAJ: So in Germany right now, recreational cannabis is descheduled, so you can grow three plants at home and you can have up to 20 to 30 grams of cannabis on you in Germany. But recreational stores are not allowed currently. We see that changing in the next couple of years.
ROGER: And what kind of opportunities do you see with that, if that does come through?
RAJ: Oh, exponential opportunity. Look, our ambitions are global. We’ve said it from day one. We have the best concept in cannabis, whether you take us in Canada or globally. There’s no such concept as the Cabana Club that exists today, and we want to take our Cabana Club globally. So Germany will be next, hopefully, and then hopefully the U.K. after that.
ROGER: And is there local competition there for you?
RAJ: Not at the moment. Look, there’s always competition in every industry, but we’re the leaders already in the German market. Our market share went up from 6.3 per cent in the three months ended September 2025 to 10.5 per cent in the three months ended December 2025. So we continue to do the best we can in every market, and we continue to remain the leaders in the two markets where we operate. We think we can do the same going forward.
ROGER: All right, just last thoughts before we go on the U.S. What do you see unfolding down there?
RAJ: So the U.S. is an interesting opportunity. As you know, President Trump has passed an executive order which could represent a meaningful opportunity for our CBD business divisions. As the proposal is that Medicare patients can be covered up to $300 to $500 million in CBD products. We have two of the leading CBD brands in the country, New Leaf Naturals and Fab CBD, and we are staying in tune in terms of what the developments look like coming out of the White House and what the rescheduling reform looks like. We’ll get more information on that in April, but things are looking really good in the U.S.
ROGER: All right, we have to wrap it up there, Raj, but thanks very much for joining us.
RAJ: Thank you for having me.
ROGER: Raj Grover is CEO of High Tide.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the March 18, 2026 interview with Raj Grover are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
