The History of Vaping Abroad: An Industry Facing Reckoning and Rebirth

E-cigarettes entered the United States in 2007. Most of them are sold online and began to enter convenience stores in the early 2000s.

Both NJOY and BLU regard smokers as their target customers, and Blu founder Jason Healy knows this is a very good business opportunity. Because he himself is a smoker.

I always knew that if you could invent a product that would allow people to smoke without any negative effects, you would have a way out, Healy said. rdquo;

In 2012, BLU was sold to tobacco company Lorillard for $135 million.

In 2014, after Lorillard merged with Reynolds, Blu was sold to Imperial Brands.

Although NJOY and Blu were the most well-known brands in convenience stores in the United States at the time, a variety of brands on the market began to emerge in e-cigarette stores across the country, and most brands allowed people to choose e-cigarettes that suit their tastes and nicotine content.

In the early days of the emergence of e-cigarettes, it was uncertain whether e-cigarettes would be popular among smokers. Tobacco companies have tried without success to provide nicotine replacement products to American consumers.

In 2013, they began to try again. Altria launched the MarkTen e-cigarette and acquired the GreenSmoke brand. Reynolds launched a brand called Vuse.

According to Euromonitor, sales in the U.S. e-cigarette market exceeded $1 billion in 2013. At that time, e-cigarettes were not yet popular among minors.

“At first, my views were mixed, said Dr. Neal Benowitz, who studies nicotine at the University of California, San Francisco. ldquo; I think e-cigarettes may help quit smoking. Relatively speaking, few children use e-cigarettes, so e-cigarettes don't seem to have any problems." rdquo;

Until the emergence of JUUL, it not only completely changed the e-cigarette industry, but also changed the public's perception of e-cigarettes.

JUUL made its debut in 2015. This trendy device looks like a USB flash drive. Unlike smoking cigarettes in the past, smoking JUUL e-cigarettes is like swallowing a small medicine box filled with nicotine liquid. Because its formulation uses nicotine salts, it has an advantage over its competitors in terms of taste.
 

Euromonitor Tobacco analyst Alexander Esposito said that in the past decade, JUUL Labs has almost single-handedly promoted the development of the e-cigarette industry. According to Euromonitor, sales of the e-cigarette category reached US$6.83 billion in 2018, up from US$2.67 billion in 2014.

Thanks to its patent on nicotine salt, JUUL is invincible in the market. Other companies were ruthlessly abandoned by the market before they could even keep up with Juul's rise. NJOY, the former leader, was struggling to cope with sluggish debt and new product sales. Eventually, NJOY filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

“E-vapor really stands out compared to almost every other industry I've covered, Esposito said. ldquo; We have seen such amazing growth, and in the past few years it has been driven by a single product or a single brand. There is no industry comparable to it. This exists independently.& rdquo;

But Juul's explosive development came at a cost.
 

Euromonitor predicted in April this year that the U.S. market size will reach US$10.26 billion in 2020. Euromonitor International's Esposito said the figure could be lower after revisions to forecasts next year.

The next decade may bring a liquidation to the e-cigarette industry.

Due to the fermentation of public opinion, public health organizations that once supported e-cigarettes have now turned to urge doctors and consumers to be wary of e-cigarettes, which further affects the public's attitude towards e-cigarettes.

Some experts still believe that there are business opportunities for e-cigarettes. Data from the CDC shows that the smoking rate in the United States hit a new low in 2018, falling to 13.7% from 19.3% in 2010. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January found that e-cigarettes are more effective than therapies such as nicotine patches at helping people quit smoking.

However, the upcoming regulatory deadline may cause many e-cigarette brands to disappear from the market.

E-cigarette companies must submit applications to the FDA by May 2020. The agency will review safety data and assess the public health benefits of products, weighing the potential negative impact of youth use against the potential positive impact of smokers quitting, and the results of this assessment will determine the life and death of most brands.

Practitioners who once had high hopes for e-cigarettes are now lamenting the transformation of the e-cigarette market.

Blu founder Jason Healy said in an interview that the industry should shift its user base to non-smokers rather than the smokers they should help. The living environment of e-cigarettes has been frustrated, which has an impact on me. If e-cigarettes are made illegal, I may return to regular cigarettes or try other smoking cessation products on the market, such as nicotine patches. rdquo;

Jason Healy said: Although the current situation of the industry is not optimistic, in a sense, this is also an inevitable trend in the development of the industry. Of course, I don't think this is a fatal blow. As long as people still die from smoking, e-cigarettes have a reason to exist. rdquo;