Can vape companies slow down product updates like IQOS?

Anyone familiar with the vape industry will notice a phenomenon: every year, a large number of new e-cigarette products are released! If a manufacturer only releases three to five products a year, that can be considered few! It’s not an exaggeration to say that some manufacturers release dozens of products each year!

So the question arises: is it really good to release so many new products?

From my limited knowledge, releasing a large number of new products has both advantages and disadvantages.

The biggest advantage is that when a manufacturer has a wide range of products, its market share will be high. C-end users will see a variety of products at a glance. This not only showcases the brand's strength but also meets various consumer needs! So if I were a new manufacturer, I would also release a large number of products to cast a wide net to catch "fish"!

However, in the current e-cigarette market, releasing a large number of new products also has its downsides! While the variety of products has increased, the phenomenon of product homogenization has become more serious! C-end users have gone from having many choices to experiencing choice paralysis! It’s clearly a situation of oversupply, where many users can use a single device for a long time, completely unable to keep up with the speed of new releases! Behind this "rich product" situation, it’s inevitable that there will be so-called "changing soup but not changing medicine," which can harm the brand image.

Furthermore, if manufacturers rely on quantity to "win," their product lines will inevitably overlap, leading to a significant investment of energy and resources, leaving little room for innovation and research.

In my opinion, this is a form of market "sub-health"! So how can we improve the market situation? Looking at the "3C products" next door, the mobile phone industry is doing quite well.

Once upon a time, the mobile phone market was also frantically releasing new products, but now a brand typically releases only one flagship model per year! Don’t be fooled by the fact that they have many other models; they differentiate their products based on high-end, mid-range, and low-end categories, ensuring that their product lines do not overlap! Supply and demand are relatively balanced! Releasing one model a year perfectly meets users' psychological needs!

Let’s also look at the more mature automotive market. For instance, Volkswagen updates its existing product series every year, establishing its product family and maintaining stable updates.

Even IQOS, which has recently been officially classified as a cigarette, has only had three technical updates in four years!

Based on this, I personally believe that a healthy industry market should allow manufacturers to determine their product lifespan through reasonable updates, rather than overwhelming users with a flood of new products, leaving them confused. The lifespan of products should be determined by users. A chaotic market inevitably harms brand image. Fewer but higher-quality products will lead to longer lifespans!

There needs to be quantity, but quality must also be maintained! A balanced supply and demand is the reasonable state!

Vapers, after seeing so many dazzling products, do you still have the initial impulse to buy? Is it really good to have so many e-cigarettes released every year? Do you really have that many needs? Feel free to leave a comment and discuss!