The smoking rate among Japanese adults dropped to a record low of 32.7 percent in May, down 0.2 percentage point from a year earlier for a sixth consecutive year of decline, according to a recent report by Japan Tobacco Inc.

The proportion of women smokers, however, rose.

According to a JT survey, the proportion of male smokers dropped 1.5 points to 52 percent for a 10th consecutive year of decline, but the proportion of women smokers rose 1 point to 14.7 percent.

In Japan, adulthood is reached at age 20.

Smoking rates peaked in 1966, when 49.4 percent of adults smoked -- 83.7 percent of men and 18 percent of women.

According to the May survey, men in their 30s have the highest smoking rate, at 62 percent, while among women, smoking is most prevalent in the 20s age group, at 24.1 percent. JT added that the two age groups also had the most smokers in the previous year.

A trend that shows older people smoking less also continued.

Men smoked an average 23.9 cigarettes per day, down 0.3 from a year earlier, and women an average 17.2 cigarettes, down 0.1.

JT contacted 16,000 adult men and women, of whom 11,249 responded.

The survey has been carried out annually since 1965.

Domestic sales of tobacco totaled 163 billion cigarettes in the April-September period of this year, down 1.9 percent from the same period last year, a tobacco industry association said.

It said foreign cigarettes continued to increase their presence in the Japanese market, to 25.5 percent in the April-September period, up 0.5 point from the same period in 2000.