State-Backed Brands Appear Together at the Shanghai Vape Expo

From December 7 to 9, Shanghai Vape Culture Week was officially held at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, with more than a thousand brands from 25 countries and regions participating in the event.

Although this vape expo was called “Vape Culture Week,” the exhibits covered multiple categories including vaping products and heated tobacco products. With the rising popularity of heated tobacco products represented by IQOS, domestic vape exhibitions have begun to show development trends different from the past. First, the range of exhibited categories continues to expand. These include vaping devices, e-liquid, heated tobacco devices, and dedicated heated tobacco sticks. Heated tobacco products continue to gain momentum and are even showing signs of outpacing vaping products themselves. For more and more young people, it is no longer just the vapor that satisfies them, but also the pleasure of use and the sense of novelty brought by technological innovation.

Second, the number of exhibitors continues to grow. In particular, with the participation of China Tobacco entities such as Yunnan China Tobacco, Sichuan China Tobacco, and Hubei China Tobacco, the show has brought not only new products but also new technologies and ideas. Among them, Sichuan China Tobacco unveiled its latest concept product featuring a dual-body design, while Hubei China Tobacco showcased its newly launched heated tobacco device MOK and tobacco sticks COO at the event.

Third, diversified sales channels have attracted significant attention. At present, online channels account for a relatively large share of vaping product sales. However, as regulation of the domestic vaping market continues to tighten, online platforms will face increasing oversight. At the same time, as consumer electronics experience stores continue to expand in both breadth and depth, the development of offline vape experience stores has once again been placed on the agenda, becoming an important direction for the future of the industry. Compared with these dazzling products, some new concepts and new ideas also converged and collided at the event. On October 7, Li Youqiang, Deputy General Manager of Shenzhen Huayu Technology, Fu Yuanfeng, an expert from the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration’s expert resource pool, and Michael Pecht, recipient of the IEEE Reliability Society Lifetime Achievement Award, each shared their views on topics such as “The Future Path of Heated Tobacco Devices,” “Research on the Full Industry Chain of Heated Tobacco Sticks,” and “Reliability Issues Related to Heated Tobacco.”

The participation of some scholars with backgrounds in the tobacco industry drew attention from attending companies. One industry professional in the vaping sector said that, overall, the entry of China Tobacco’s state-backed players brings more advantages than disadvantages to the development of both vaping and heated tobacco. Especially in the face of the irreversible consumer trend toward next-generation tobacco products, only strong leadership from state-backed players can effectively compete against foreign tobacco brands.

It is not difficult to see from this Shanghai vape expo that both insiders and outsiders are full of expectations for the development of vaping and heated tobacco products. Calls for stronger regulation of the vaping market and for loosening restrictions on heated tobacco products are also growing louder. Attendees believe that the participation of China Tobacco’s state-backed players in the Shanghai vape expo sends a positive signal to the market. With the arrival of 2019, the broader vaping sector may be on the verge of major change.